New NICE Guideline Endorses Robotics & VR in Neurorehabilitation

Key points of the guideline

The guideline covers rehabilitation for children, young people and adults with chronic neurological disorders, including acquired brain injury, spinal cord injury, peripheral-nerve disorders, functional neurological disorders, and progressive neurological diseases. Among its many recommendations, the section on “Stability, mobility and limb function” is particularly relevant to robotics, gaming and virtual reality.

Specifically, it recommends when a person has problems with stability, mobility or upper/lower limb function, the rehabilitation plan should include specific and targeted training and exercises, importantly,  the recommendation includes “use of robotics or a combined approach is advocated.

It also states that rehabilitation providers should  “Think about using gaming modalities or virtual reality to help the person engage with training and exercises” to improve outcomes.

The rationale section emphasises that evidence showed using gaming modalities and virtual reality improved engagement with rehabilitation, especially for children and young people. The committee agreed that engagement is a vital element of rehabilitation

The rationale also notes that robotics allow greater training intensity.

The guideline gives clear endorsement to the use of robotics, exoskeletons and virtual-gaming/VR modalities as part of a rehabilitation programme for mobility, stability and limb function in chronic neurological conditions.

• It also places emphasis not only on delivering exercises but on engagement and sustained participation, which is where gaming or VR can play a key role.
• Rehabilitation should be personalised, goal-oriented, and integrated into the person’s day-to-day activities (home, community) and not just restricted to supervised clinical sessions.
• The guideline thus supports innovations and service models that incorporate technology-enabled training, such as robotics plus immersive modalities, as part of mainstream rehabilitation pathways.

Endorsing MOTIONrehab’s pioneering approach

Since 2018, MOTIONrehab has focused on using robotics, gaming or virtual-reality systems to help people with neurological disorders engage meaningfully in training to improve stability, mobility and limb function.
The NICE guideline’s recommendations explicitly align with that approach. In particular:

• The guideline’s recommendation to “use robotics, an exoskeleton, or a combined approach” directly mirrors MOTIONrehab’s robotics-based training systems.
• The guideline’s recommendation to “think about using gaming modalities or virtual reality to help the person engage with training and exercises” recognises the same modality that MOTIONrehab has been utilising.
• With NICE’s endorsement, this validates MOTIONrehab’s model — showing that their technology-enabled, engagement-focused rehabilitation is consistent with the current national best‐practice guideline.
• In short: the guideline endorses the integration of advanced technology (robotics + gaming/VR) as part of rehabilitation for chronic neurological disorders — exactly the direction MOTIONrehab has been championing.