Effects of Gamification and Communication in Virtual Reality Frozen Shoulder Rehabilitation for Enhanced Rehabilitation Continuity

The monotony of movements makes frozen shoulder rehabilitation an boring task for certain patients. This study posits that gamification and the presence of others can effectively address this issue. Accordingly, we developed a virtual reality (VR) application for frozen shoulder rehabilitation exercises and empirically examined the effects of gamification and the presence of others on rehabilitation duration. A user study on 32 subjects revealed that the integration of game elements into a VR rehabilitation program significantly prolonged the rehabilitation duration (p < 0.001, d = 0.983). Additionally, the rehabilitation duration was considerably longer when participants performed the rehabilitation program with others (p < 0.05, d = 0.455).