Virtual reality therapy to control burn pain: systematic review of randomized controlled trials

Author(s):  
Cristina Antonia de Jesus Catalã ◽  
Raquel Pan ◽  
Meline Rossetto Kron-Rodrigues ◽  
Noélle de Oliveira Freitas

Abstract Background Virtual reality therapy has been shown to be an excellent alternative to non-pharmacological treatment for the control of burn pain. Objective To evaluate the effects of virtual reality therapy on pain control in people who have suffered burns published in the scientific literature. Method Systematic review carried out as recommended by Cochrane®. The search was carried out in the Embase, PubMed, Lilacs and Cochrane Library databases, in the period from March 2021. Randomized clinical trials were included without language restriction and year of publication. The risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane® tool. Results Of the 3755 articles found, only 17 articles were selected for reading in full. Of these, only four articles met the inclusion criteria. The results of the studies showed that the use of virtual reality therapy reduced the intensity of pain in children and adolescents with burns, despite the fact that most results are not statistically significant. No selected study had a high risk of bias. Conclusions Virtual reality therapy has been shown to be effective in controlling pain, reducing the time spent thinking about it and greater distraction during the procedures. However, most randomized clinical trials results were not statistically significant in at least one of the moments when pain was assessed. It is noteworthy that randomized clinical trials are still necessary to administer virtual reality therapy, especially in adults.

Life ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 98
Author(s):  
Andréa Oliver Gomes ◽  
Ana Luiza Cabrera Martimbianco ◽  
Aldo Brugnera Junior ◽  
Anna Carolina Ratto Tempestini Horliana ◽  
Tamiris da Silva ◽  
...  

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of photobiomodulation as an adjuvant treatment for primary headache. A systematic review of randomized clinical trials was performed. For such, electronic searches were performed in the MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Library, LILACS, PEDro, PsycInfo, Clinicaltrials.gov., and WHO/ICTRP databases, with no restrictions imposed regarding language or year of publication. We included studies that assessed any photobiomodulation therapy as an adjuvant treatment for primary headache compared to sham treatment, no treatment, or another intervention. The methodological assessment was conducted using the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool. The certainty of the evidence was classified using the GRADE approach. Four randomized clinical trials were included. Most of the included studies had an overall high risk of bias. Compared to sham treatment, photobiomodulation had a clinically important effect on pain in individuals with primary headache. Despite the benefits reported for other outcomes, the estimates were imprecise, and the certainty of the evidence was graded as low. These findings are considered insufficient to support the use of photobiomodulation in the treatment of primary headache. Randomized clinical trials, with higher methodological quality, are needed to enhance the reliability of the estimated effects.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Hajra Ameer Shaikh ◽  
Fouzia Hussain ◽  
Darshan Kumar

Introduction: Stroke is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Despite the glowing advancement of Virtual Reality Therapy (VRT), clear evidence about its effectiveness in stroke is still scarce. Hence it is essential to review the current information to provide up-to-date insight. Therefore the aim of this review is to evaluate the effects of VRT on the balance and Health-related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in patients with stroke.Data Sources: A literature search was done in Google Scholar, PEDro, Cochrane Library, Medline, Web of Science, and PubMed databases.Eligibility Criteria: We performed a systematic review of randomized controlled trials published from June 2014 to January 2020, evaluating the effects of VRT on the balance and/or HRQoL in stroke. Fourteen eligible trials were analyzed, of which, 7 studies focused on balance and 7 on HRQoL.Quality Appraisal: Methodological quality and risk of bias were assessed using the Cochrane tool.Results: Most of the trials supported the effectiveness of VRT in improving balance and HRQoL. However, few trials reported similar improvements in HRQoL using VRT via Nintendo WiiTM games and conventional physiotherapy.Conclusions: High to moderate evidence supports the effectiveness of VRT use in improving balance and HRQoL in stroke survivors.


Pain Medicine ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Martinez-Calderon ◽  
Mar Flores-Cortes ◽  
Jose Miguel Morales-Asencio ◽  
Alejandro Luque-Suarez

Abstract Objective This systematic review aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of different interventions at reducing pain-related fear in people with fibromyalgia and to analyze whether the included trials reported their interventions in full detail. Design Systematic review. Setting No restrictions. Methods The Cochrane Library, CINAHL, EMBASE, PsycINFO, PubMed, and Scopus were searched from their inception to April 2020, along with manual searches and a gray literature search. Randomized clinical trials were included if they assessed pain-related fear constructs as the primary or secondary outcome in adults with fibromyalgia. Two reviewers independently performed the study selection, data extraction, risk-of-bias assessment, Template for Intervention Description and Replication (TIDieR) checklist assessment, and grading the quality of evidence. Results Twelve randomized clinical trials satisfied the eligibility criteria, including 11 cohorts with a total sample of 1,441 participants. Exercise, multicomponent, and psychological interventions were more effective than controls were in reducing kinesiophobia. However, there were no differences in decreasing kinesiophobia when self-management and electrotherapy were used. There were also no differences between groups with regard to the rest of the interventions and pain-related constructs (fear-avoidance beliefs, fear of pain, and pain-related anxiety). However, a serious risk of bias and a very serious risk of imprecision were detected across the included trials. This caused the overall certainty of the judged evidence to be low and very low. Additionally, the included trials reported insufficient details to allow the full replication of their interventions. Conclusions This systematic review shows that there are promising interventions, such as exercise, multicomponent, and psychological therapies, that may decrease one specific type of fear in people with fibromyalgia, i.e., kinesiophobia. However, because of the low–very low certainty of the evidence found, a call for action is needed to improve the quality of randomized clinical trials, which will lead to more definitive information about the clinical efficacy of interventions in this field.


2011 ◽  
Vol 129 (5) ◽  
pp. 335-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo Carvalho Lopes Silva ◽  
Rachel Riera ◽  
Humberto Saconato

CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE: Lumiracoxib is an anti-inflammatory drug that has been used to treat acute dental pain, mainly in postsurgical settings, in which the greatest levels of pain and discomfort are experienced during the first 24 hours. This study aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of lumiracoxib for treating acute postsurgical dental pain. DESIGN AND SETTING: Systematic review developed at the Brazilian Cochrane Centre, Universidade Federal de São Paulo. METHODS: An electronic search was conducted in the PubMed, Cochrane Library, Lilacs (Literatura Latino-Americana e do Caribe em Ciências da Saúde), SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online) and Embase databases. A manual search was also performed. Only randomized controlled trials were included, and these were selected and assessed by two researchers with regard to the risk of bias. RESULTS: Three clinical trials with 921 participants were included. Lumiracoxib 400 mg produced onset of analgesia in a shorter time than shown by lumiracoxib 100 mg, celecoxib 200 mg and ibuprofen 400 mg. There was no difference between lumiracoxib 400 mg and rofecoxib 50 mg. In two studies, the mean time taken to attain onset of analgesia for the placebo was not estimated because the number of participants who reached onset was too small. CONCLUSION: There is evidence with a moderate risk of bias that recommends the use of lumiracoxib for acute postoperative dental pain. However, the adverse effects are not completely known. Given that lumiracoxib is currently available in only three countries, further studies are likely to be rare and discouraged.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Salvatore Crisafulli ◽  
Nicoletta Luxi ◽  
Raffaele Coppini ◽  
Annalisa Capuano ◽  
Cristina Scavone ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Polypharmacy is defined as the prescription of at least 5 different medicines for therapeutic or prophylactic effect and is a serious issue among elderly patients, who are frequently affected by multi-morbidity. Deprescribing is one of the proposed approaches to reduce the number of administered drugs, by eliminating those that are inappropriately prescribed. The aim of this systematic review is to provide an updated and systematic assessment of the benefit-risk profile of deprescribing of anti-hypertensive drugs, which are among the most commonly used drugs. Methods MEDLINE, EMBASE and The Cochrane Library were searched for studies assessing the efficacy and safety of anti-hypertensive drugs deprescribing in the period between January, 12,016 and December, 312,019. The quality of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) was assessed using the GRADE approach for the evaluation of the main outcomes. The risk of bias assessment was carried out using the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool. Results Overall, two RCTs were identified. Despite summarized evidence was in favor of anti-hypertensive deprescribing, the overall risk of bias was rated as high for each RCT included. According to the GRADE approach, the overall quality of the RCTs included was moderate regarding the following outcomes: systolic blood pressure < 150 mmHg after 12 weeks of follow-up, quality of life, frailty and cardiovascular risk. Conclusions This updated systematic review of the efficacy and safety of anti-hypertensive treatment deprescribing found two recently published RCTs, in addition to the previous guideline of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). Evidence points towards non-inferiority of anti-hypertensive deprescribing as compared to treatment continuation, despite the quality of published studies is not high. High quality experimental studies are urgently needed to further assess the effect of deprescribing for this drug class in specific categories of patients.


Author(s):  
Bruna Francielle Toneti ◽  
Rafael Fernando Mendes Barbosa ◽  
Leandro Yukio Mano ◽  
Luana Okino Sawada ◽  
Igor Goulart de Oliveira ◽  
...  

Objective: to analyze, in the literature, evidence about the benefits of the integrative and complementary practice of Qigong with regard to the health of adults and the elderly. Method: a systematic review by searching for studies in the PubMed, CINAHL, LILACS, EMBASE and Cochrane Library databases. Randomized and non-randomized clinical trials were included; in Portuguese, English and Spanish; from 2008 to 2018. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses strategy was adopted, as well as the recommendation of the Cochrane Collaboration for assessing the risk of bias in the clinical trials analyzed. Results: 28 studies were selected that indicated the benefit of the practice to the target audience, which can be used for numerous health conditions, such as: cancer; fibromyalgia; Parkinson’s disease; Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease; Burnout; stress; social isolation; chronic low back pain; cervical pain; buzz; osteoarthritis; fatigue; depression; and cardiovascular diseases. However, there was a great risk of bias in terms of the blinding of the research studies. Conclusion: the practice of Qigong produces positive results on health, mainly in the medium and long term. This study contributes to the advancement in the use of integrative and complementary practices in nursing, since it brings together the scientific production in the area from the best research results available.


Author(s):  
Hamed Abdollahi ◽  
Mina Abdolahi ◽  
Mohsen Sedighiyan ◽  
Arash Jafarieh

Background: Recent clinical trial studies have reported that L-carnitine supplementation can reduce the mortality rate in patients with sepsis, but there are no definitive results in this context. The current systematic review and metaanalysis aimed to evaluate the effect of L-carnitine supplementation on 28-day and one-year mortality in septic patients. Methods: A systemically search conducted on Pubmed, Scopus and Cochrane Library databases up to June 2019 without any language restriction. The publications were reviewed based on Cochrane handbook and preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA). To compare the effects of L-carnitine with placebo, Risk Ratio (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were pooled according to random effects model. Results: Across five enrolled clinical trials, we found that L-carnitine supplementation reduce one-year mortality in septic patients with SOFA> 12 (RR: 0.68; 95% CI: 0.49 to 0.96; P= 0.03) but had no significant effect on reducing 28-day mortality ((RR: 0.93; 95% CI: 0.68 to 1.28; P= 0.65) compared to placebo. Finally, we observed that based on current trials, Lcarnitine supplementation may not have clinically a significant effect on mortality rate. Conclusions: L-carnitine patients with higher SOFA score can reduce the mortality rate. However, the number of trials, study duration and using dosage of L-carnitine are limited in this context and further large prospective trials are required to clarify the effect of L-carnitine on mortality rate in septic patients.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Reyhanifard ◽  
Sarvin Sanaie ◽  
Mojgan Mirghafurvand ◽  
Sama Rahnemayan ◽  
Arezoo Fathalizadeh ◽  
...  

Objectives: This systematic review of the literature was carried out to see whether coffee consumption could affect Parkinson’s disease (PD) symptoms. Methods: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs), crossover studies, and quasi-experimental studies were assessed to evaluate the effect of caffeine on PD. The databases including Medline/PubMed, ProQuest, Embase, Cochrane Library, and ClinicalTrials.gov were systematically searched. The Cochrane Collaboration’s tool for assessing the risk of bias in randomized clinical trials and the Cochrane risk of bias assessment tool for non-randomized studies of interventions (ROBINS-I) were used to assess the quality of RCTs and non-randomized clinical trials, respectively. A meta-analysis of the results was not possible because of reporting different outcomes. Results: Four papers were included in this study. Only one study reported the significant effect of caffeine on ESS and UPDRS. Another study observed no significant effect of caffeine on ESS during three- and six-week interventions. However, a significant reduction in ESS scores in the sixth week was reported after excluding four protocol violations. This study reported that the UPDRS score reduced in the third week, but significant changes were observed after six weeks. The other two studies did not show a significant effect of caffeine on ESS and UPDRS. Conclusions: Since a meta-analysis was not conducted, there was insufficient evidence to evaluate the effect of caffeine on PD. Thus, it is recommended to conduct more well-designed RCTs with a larger sample size to assess the effect of caffeine on PD.


Author(s):  
Seyed Reza Mirhafez ◽  
Mitra Hariri

Abstract. L-arginine is an important factor in several physiological and biochemical processes. Recently, scientists studied L-arginine effect on inflammatory mediators such as C-reactive protein (CRP), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-6 (IL-6). We conducted a systematic review on randomized controlled trials assessing L-arginine effect on inflammatory mediators. We searched data bases including Google scholar, ISI web of science, SCOPUS, and PubMed/Medline up to April 2019. Randomized clinical trials assessing the effect of L-arginine on inflammatory mediators in human adults were included. Our search retrieved eleven articles with 387 participants. Five articles were on patients with cancer and 6 articles were on adults without cancer. L-arginine was applied in enteral form in 5 articles and in oral form in 6 articles. Eight articles were on both genders, two articles were on women, and one article was on men. L-arginine could not reduce inflammatory mediators among patients with and without cancer except one article which indicated that taking L-arginine for 6 months decreased IL-6 among cardiopathic nondiabetic patients. Our results indicated that L-arginine might not be able to reduce selected inflammatory mediators, but for making a firm decision more studies are needed to be conducted with longer intervention duration, separately on male and female and with different doses of L-arginine.


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