Abstract
Background:Virtual Reality can help alleviate symptoms in a non-palliative care population. Personalized therapy can further alleviate these symptoms. There is little evidence in a palliative care population.Aim:To understand the feasibility of repeated personalized virtual reality sessions in a palliative care population.Design:A feasibility randomized control trial. Intervention: personalized virtual reality, Control: non-personalized virtual reality. All participants completed a 4-minute virtual reality session for 4 weeks. At each point, the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System-Revised (scored 0 = none up to 100 = worst) was completed pre- and post- each session. A time-series regression analysis was completed for the overall effect.Setting/Participants:The research took place in one hospice. The main inclusion criteria was: (1) under the care of the hospice (2) advanced disease (3) over 18 years (4) physically able to use virtual reality set (5) capacity (6) proficient English.Results:Twenty-six participants enrolled, of which 20 (77%) completed all sessions. At baseline, the intervention group had a mean pre- score of 26.3 (SD 15.1) which reduced to 11.5 (SD 12.6) after the first session. At the same time point, the control group had a mean pre- score of 37.9 (SD 21.6) which reduced to 25.5 (SD 17.4) post-session. The mean scores dropped following each session, however this was not significant (mean difference = −1.3, 95% CI: −6.4 to 3.7, p = 0.601).Conclusions:It is feasible to complete repeated virtual reality sessions within a palliative care population. Future research should explore the structure and effectiveness of virtual reality in a fully powered trial.
Highlights
Virtual Reality can help alleviate symptoms in a non-palliative care population
A previous study investigating the impact of Virtual reality (VR) for people who have experienced a stroke showed an improvement using the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS).[1]
VR therapy using computer generated environments have shown to have positive effects in pain management,[2,3,4] Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),[5] anxiety,[6] and depression.[7]. These symptoms are commonly reported within a palliative care population,[8] and it is possible that VR could provide a non-pharmacological alternative to alleviate them, alongside the holistic model of care that hospices in the UK follow.[9,10]
Summary
Virtual Reality can help alleviate symptoms in a non-palliative care population. Personalized therapy can further alleviate these symptoms. A previous study investigating the impact of VR for people who have experienced a stroke showed an improvement using the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS).[1] Since its development, VR therapy using computer generated environments have shown to have positive effects in pain management,[2,3,4] Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),[5] anxiety,[6] and depression.[7] These symptoms are commonly reported within a palliative care population,[8] and it is possible that VR could provide a non-pharmacological alternative to alleviate them, alongside the holistic model of care that hospices in the UK follow.[9,10]. Both studies found trends for improvements on symptoms following VR using the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System-Revised (ESAS-R)
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