## 4 Discussion  
Our study had the purpose of analyzing the effects of a testing protocol based on virtual reality for physical and psychological rehabilitation, conducted with 25 patients suffering from different musculoskeletal or neuromotor disorders. This study included two physiotherapy exercises and two relaxation exercises, alternated to create a 5 min training session. Both objective and subjective data were collected, and statistical analysis was performed to find relevant correlations. One important result is the correlation between the whack-a-mole average score and the level of technological experience of the patients. The whack-a-mole exercise is the most advanced game in terms of mechanics, controls, and complexity, so the differences between the results of people with low or high technological savviness are justified, as people more accustomed to technology understand and adapt faster to technological challenges and more complex systems. The other games' scores, boxing and collecting fruits, showed no correlation with the level of technological experience, as they are very simple to understand and complete by any user. Similarly, as the whack-a-mole exercise is the most complex in terms of VR mechanics, requiring a good sense of depth perception (moles displayed in a 3 \(\times\) 3 tridimensional matrix), as well as good coordination between the real hand recognized by the hand-tracking capabilities and the virtual hand with the hammer attached, correlation results between relaxation in this game and VR savviness show that the users with the most previous VR experience were able to stay the most relaxed and not perceive the tasks as stressful. Another interesting aspect is related to the relaxation felt by people in the psychological exercises in correlation with their technological experience. In particular, the relaxation self-assessed by the patients in the breathing exercise was higher in the case of experienced users. This result, as well as the lack of significant differences between low and medium levels of technological experience, can refer to the fact that people with high technological expertise can better understand the potential of using technology assets for relaxation purposes and let themselves be more immersed in breathing exercises. The lack of other statistically significant correlations suggests that the ease of use and relaxation for physical rehabilitation games, as well as for progressive muscular relaxation techniques, can be perceived similarly by patients of all technological backgrounds based on the way the games' user experience was planned (having in mind appropriateness independent of technological skills). Figure 11: Kruskal–Wallis testing: boxplot of the patients’ comfort in using virtual reality based on their previous experience with VR (0 = no experience V0; 1 = little experience V1; 2 = medium experience V2). Progressive muscle relaxation was also clearly correlated with virtual reality savviness, which can be explained as PMR is an exercise showing an avatar facing the user, with a ball of light traversing various segments of the body. Patients must therefore associate the mirrored virtual character with their own real body and focus on the respective body part's relaxation, actions which can be influenced and simplified by previous VR experiences. Encouraging results were showcased after analyzing the responses related to patients' openness to using such a system in a telemedicine program. All people with previous VR encounters were willing to use the exercises in future telemedicine rehabilitation. Low reticence from people inexperienced with VR can be influenced by the so-called fear of the unknown and can be solved by the accommodation acquired through multiple uses of virtual reality applications. Our results showed that performance in physical rehabilitation games is not correlated with gaming difficulty preferences. Furthermore, ease of use and relaxation were perceived similarly by people from all groups (G1-G5).