TONE · Using musculo-postural biofeedback in virtual reality for pain management in musicians
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2021-06-01 → 2023-05-31
- EU contribution
- €157,941
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Using musculo-postural biofeedback in virtual reality for pain management in musicians
What is the problem/issue being addressed? Occupational musculoskeletal disorders (WMSD) are common in professions with repetitive motor activities and abnormal postures, causing non-specific pain symptoms. Playing a musical instrument is a profession with a high prevalence of musculoskeletal pain (Playing Related Musculoskeletal Disorder - PRMD), affecting 93% of professional musicians and 68% of amateurs. Musicians with PRMD often exhibit dysfunctions in their postural stabilization system, muscular over-activities, and body-side muscular asymmetries, contributing to pain manifestation. Project TONE is aiming to develop and empirically investigate an innovative tool aimed at assisting musicians in developing preventive and pain-management strategies against musculoskeletal pain specific to instrument playing. Why is it important for society? The anticipated outcome of Project TONE is to yield novel research findings, advancing our understanding of the mechanisms underlying pain manifestation in work-related musculoskeletal disorders and the efficacy of non-pharmacological interventions. Given the substantial economic burden of WRMSDs costing €476 billion annually, accounting for 3.3% of the European Union's Gross Domestic Product, the imperative to develop and validate effective intervention strategies becomes increasingly significant. Thus, Project TONE represents a valuable contribution to this scientific endeavor, aiming to enhance the knowledge base and address the challenges posed by musculoskeletal pain in musicians and related professions. What are the overall objectives? Overall objectives of the project are the development of a tool will consisting of a virtual mirror biofeedback system, capable of providing real-time displays of musculopostural parameters on a virtual character, replicating the movements of musicians during their instrument performances. Additionally, immediate corrective feedback will be delivered in response to the detection of abnormal musculo-postural activities. To complement this system, a Virtual Reality (VR) game will be designed to assess whether attentional distraction during instrument playing can serve as an effective intervention against pain in affected musicians.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Performing a musical instrument requires the coordination of repetitive motor patterns under sustained abnormal and non-ergonomic static postures. As a result, it exhibits one of the highest prevalence rates in work-related musculoskeletal disorders. The aim of project TONE is to develop and test with empirical research, an innovative tool that will assist musicians in developing preventive and pain-management strategies against task-specific musculoskeletal pain. This tool will comprise of a virtual mirror biofeedback system that will display musculo-postural parameters on a virtual character simulating in real time the movement of musicians during instrument performance. Corrective feedback will also be displayed in real time when abnormal musculo-postural activities are detected. In addition, a complementary VR game will be designed to be used with the biofeedback system to evaluate whether attentional distraction during instrument playing can be an effective intervention against pain. The effectiveness of the virtual mirror biofeedback tool and the VR game in preventing and/or reducing pain symptoms from abnormal musculo-skeletal activities executed during non-ergonomic postural activities (such as playing a musical instrument), will be assessed in experimental studies with healthy musicians, as well as with musicians suffering from acute or chronic pain. Thus, TONE will contribute new research findings that will help to better understand how pain in work-related musculoskeletal disorders manifests and how it can be treated. As work-related musculoskeletal disorders exert great cost on economy -- equal to 3.3% of EU GDP – it is rather imperative to develop and validate effective non-pharmacological treatment interventions. Project TONE aspires to provide a crucial step to that direction.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- CYENS CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE · NICOSIACoordinatorCyprus
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union