The Potential of Personalized Virtual Reality in Palliative Care: A Feasibility Trial

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.