The basic science behind noimove

The idea that visual information that suggests you are watching yourself move can reduce pain is not new. There have been several studies in people with arm pain or leg pain that show reduction of pain when one watches the non-painful arm or leg in the mirror while they move both the visible limb and the limb behind the mirror. The use of mirrors however, relies on you having one limb that is not painful and works normally. One experiment tried to replicate this effect by virtual walking, which is effectively what noimove aims to do – give you the visual information that you are watching yourself in the mirror while you walk. In that experiment with 5 people who had sustained a spinal cord injury and had severe pain below their injury level, 4 of them got great pain relief from daily virtual walking. Here is the abstract of the trial from 2007.

The idea behind noimove is to see if this response is typical, whether it only occurs in people who are can’t walk or stand for various reasons (e.g. paralysis, amputation, weakness, hospitalisation) or is helpful to other people too – that is why we would love it, if you have pain and or problems standing or walking,, that you tell us how noimove affects your pain or other symptoms.

It is very important to realize that noimove is in the experimental stage. We are currently designing studies using the programme. For now, we are interested in your experiences using noimove and this will help us design better studies.