A study launched at the McGill University Health Centre aims to evaluate the effects of virtual reality sessions on the health and well-being of patients hospitalized at the Royal Victoria Hospital due to advanced cancer.
The AVATAR study is taking place with patients hospitalized for advanced cancer in the oncology unit, as well as with some cancer patients hospitalized in the palliative care unit.
“I’ve been a doctor on the floor for more than five years and I realized that a patient who is admitted to the oncology floor moves less, becomes a little more depressed, it’s not a floor that invites us to be very happy or dynamic,” said the study’s lead, Dr. Ramy Saleh, who is a medical oncologist at the MUHC.
The idea for this study arose when Dr. Saleh observed a patient using a virtual reality device to relax and distract herself. Upon reviewing the literature, he found that the scientific community had shown little interest in the subject until now.
Participants are offered five virtual environments ranging from relaxation to interactive games requiring movement. The objective is to determine whether these virtual “escapes” provide measurable and significant benefits to patients’ emotional well-being and health.
“We approach patients for five consecutive days during their hospitalization,” explained Dr. Saleh. “We want to know if (VR) promotes relaxation, if it reduces stress, if it alleviates symptoms such as pain, anxiety, depression, and demoralization, but we also want to see if VR can encourage them to move around a little more.”
Patients are asked to complete questionnaires before and after the virtual reality session to begin to quantify and measure the impact it has had on them.
Initially deployed on the oncology floor, the project quickly attracted the attention of the intensive care team, who expressed interest in participating.
“Honestly, in oncology, most of the time we conduct clinical trials with medications; we rarely do studies or research on the non-interventional side of medication,” Dr. Saleh pointed out. “This is something that greatly interests me. Is there a way to help our patients, and not just with medication? Virtual reality is one of those options.”
He assures us that it’s been a success so far. Patients who need to receive treatment at the hospital are demanding access to virtual reality, and staff even had to deal with a very unhappy patient whose allotted appointment time had “already” expired.
But the goal of virtual reality, Dr. Saleh reminded us, is not just to distract patients: it is also to encourage them to move a little more in order to combat the deconditioning that hospitalization can cause.
“In the hospital, you eat in your bed, the doctor comes to see you in your bed, you shower in your room…,” he recalled. “When the patient is discharged home, they are a little more tired because they are resuming their ‘real’ normal life. So, with VR, we want patients to be active.”
This is especially true, Dr. Saleh continues, because some patients hesitate to leave their rooms to walk in the corridor due to the impact of the treatments on their physical appearance. With the VR device, they can move around in their rooms, out of sight of others.
“This is something very new, so we’ll take things one day at a time, we’ll reassess the situation, but it’s already really ‘cool’,” Dr. Saleh enthused. “It’s not really something that’s going to cost our public system a lot; there’s a way to stimulate their mental state in a positive way without medication, so there are many advantages.”
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
