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Matthias C. Schrempf, Julian Petzold, Morten Aa. Petersen, Tim Tobias Arndt.
Virtual Reality (VR) is emerging as a cost-effective digital therapeutic tool for stress reduction, improving symptoms of anxiety and depression, and enhancing psychological well-being, particularly in cancer patients. VR interventions create immersive environments that distract users from their immediate surroundings, potentially reducing perioperative stress and improving quality of life and patient satisfaction during surgery.
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Abstract
Technological progress and advances in the development of digital therapeutics, which are interventions based on advanced technology and software programmes, have broadened the range of potential tools for stress reduction24,25.
Virtual Reality (VR), which is increasingly being explored as a cost-effective digital therapeutic, is a technology that simulates a real environment. In a virtual environment, visual, auditory, and haptic stimuli are used to create immersion, an interactive experience, and a sense of presence in that environment26,27,28,29.
Both realistic graphics and acoustics as well emotional responses evoked by the VR experience, contribute to the sense of presence described as a feeling of being in the virtual scene30,31. VR-based interventions can improve symptoms of anxiety and depression and have been successfully used to treat acute and periinterventional pain in adults and children27,32,33,34. It has also been applied to improve psychological well-being in young cancer patients35. Virtual immersive environments create a strong distraction as users cannot see immediate surroundings through the VR headset. Software that enables users to interact with the VR environment e.g., by steering or controlling elements of the virtual environment by head movements, can increase the degree of immersion and disctraction28,34,36.
There is growing evidence that VR interventions can contribute to emotional, psychological, and social well-being30. Mindfulness-based interventions have shown to elicit positive emotional responses and improve mood37,38,39.
The state of immersion that occurs in a VR environment is associated with focused attention which is intended during mindfulness practice and might enhance the effect37. These findings suggest that VR interventions may hold the potential to reduce perioperative stress and improve various aspects of quality of life, mood and patient satisfaction in cancer patients undergoing surgery.
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