Los Angeles, May 06, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AppliedVR®, a pioneer in immersive therapeutics (ITx), announced the publication of a new study in Scientific Reports as part of its special collection, "Risk Factors of Chronic Pain and Approaches to Pain Management." This secondary analysis, based on a large randomized controlled trial (RCT) of over 1,000 participants, evaluated the impact of the FDA-authorized RelieVRx® virtual reality (VR) therapy on patients suffering from chronic lower back pain (CLBP) at home, with a particular focus on those experiencing high-impact chronic pain (HICP), a group traditionally facing greater disability and barriers to care.
Researchers sought to determine whether patients with high-impact chronic pain (HICP) (defined as patients with chronic pain that is accompanied by at least one major activity restriction, such as being unable to work outside the home, go to school, or do household chores) experienced greater levels of pain relief after completing treatment, relative to patients with lower-impact chronic pain (LICP).
The findings indicate that RelieVRx produced clinically meaningful reductions in both pain intensity and pain interference for all participants, with particularly pronounced improvements among those with high-impact chronic pain (HICP). By the end of the VR therapy, 70% of HICP patients had transitioned to lower-impact chronic pain (LICP) status, and 67% of those patients maintained their improved LICP status 12 months post-treatment, suggesting sustained, long-term benefits.
These results build on prior research showing RelieVRx’s consistent effectiveness across sociodemographic groups and add compelling evidence for the technology's specific utility in treating severely impacted patients.
The significance of these findings is substantial. Patients with HICP represent some of the highest-cost and most challenging cases for healthcare systems. For providers, this research suggests VR could offer a more powerful treatment option for patients who struggle the most. For payers, RelieVRx presents a potential means to lower overall healthcare costs by improving patient functionality and reducing reliance on more invasive, higher-risk procedures.
The growing need to prioritize non-invasive, evidence-based interventions that offer strong safety profiles and promote sustained functional improvement and effective pain management is reshaping clinical practice. Emerging clinical guidelines, including recent recommendations from The BMJ, discourage the routine use of high-risk interventional procedures for chronic spine pain—a broad category encompassing the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar regions, excluding cases related to cancer or inflammatory arthropathies—due to the low certainty of benefit and the moderate to high risk of harm. In this evolving landscape, RelieVRx emerges as an imperative, safe, and validated skills-based therapeutic solution, specifically designed to meet the complex needs of patients with chronic lower back pain, particularly those living with high-impact chronic pain.
“Finding that we can move patients from high-impact to low-impact pain is very notable because it means we can help them get back to the activities that severe pain can interfere with,” said Dr. Beth Darnall, Chief Science Advisor at AppliedVR.
The RelieVRx program is a novel adjunctive pain management program rooted in evidence-based principles for the treatment of patients living with CLBP. It’s the first FDA-authorized VR therapy for treating chronic lower back pain (CLBP) and has been shown to promote neuroplasticity and enable patients to build long-term skills to respond to pain. Patients administer the device on themselves in their own homes, conducting 56 sessions that average six minutes each.
About AppliedVR
AppliedVR is creating a new reality in healthcare. We are pioneering immersive therapeutics (ITx), a new category of medicine, to treat intractable health conditions that affect millions of people worldwide. Today, AppliedVR's treatments represent a robust approach to chronic lower back pain (CLBP) that empowers patients with an intuitive device they can self-manage at home. AppliedVR's RelieVRx® program is the first VR-based, prescription therapeutic to receive Breakthrough Device Designation and De Novo authorization by the FDA for CLBP. AppliedVR's wellness programs have been trusted by more than 200 leading health systems and thousands of healthcare professionals globally, used on more than 60,000 patients. For more information, visit www.appliedvr.io.
Kristen Gehring AppliedVR 8448570010 press@appliedvr.io
