Virtual reality therapy may aid mental health, quality of life
Researchers paired VR, cognitive behavioral therapy in study with 90 people
An intervention combining talk therapy with virtual reality may help improve mental health and life quality for people with Parkinson’s disease, a study reports.
“The results of this study demonstrated that [virtual reality-augmented cognitive behavioral therapy] significantly enhanced emotional well-being and quality of life in the experimental group compared to the control group,” the study’s researchers wrote. “Specifically, the intervention led to substantial improvements in emotional regulation, reduced depressive and anxious symptoms, and increased overall satisfaction with life.”
The study, “Efficacy of virtual reality-based cognitive behavioral group therapy in enhancing emotional well-being and quality of life in Parkinson’s disease: A randomized controlled trial,” was published in Clinical Parkinsonism and Related Disorders.
Living with Parkinson’s disease can take a toll on a person’s mental health and life quality, and anxiety and depression are common nonmotor symptoms of Parkinson’s.
Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, is a form of talk therapy that’s widely used to help people manage their mental health. It focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and behaviors and working to create healthier alternatives.
Recently, researchers have begun to explore how virtual reality (VR) technology, a type of immersive technology that gives the user the sensation of being in a computer-generated environment, might help make interventions like CBT more effective. Here, scientists in Iran explored the potential benefits of combining CBT and VR in an intervention with Parkinson’s patients.
Combining CBT with VR
“The integration of virtual reality (VR) into CBT creates an immersive, engaging environment that enhances therapeutic participation,” the researchers wrote. “VR enables patients to experience real-life scenarios in a controlled and supportive setting, which facilitates skill acquisition and emotional processing. This immersive experience allows participants to practice and internalize coping strategies, bridging the gap between therapy and real-life challenges.”
The study enrolled 90 people with Parkinson’s who were split into two groups. One group received 12 sessions of VR-augmented CBT over three months, while the other group didn’t receive any specific mental health care.
Before and after the study, the participants took the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), a mental health test, along with the Parkinson’s Disease Questionnaire-39 (PDQ-39), a disease-specific measure of quality of life.
In both groups, average scores on the HADS and PDQ-39 tended to improve over three months. The magnitude of improvement on both measurements was significantly more pronounced among those who received VR-augmented CBT, however, with statistical tests showing that patients who got the CBT intervention were more likely to show improvements in mental health and life quality.
“This research underscores the potential of virtual reality-based cognitive-behavioral group therapy … as an effective intervention for improving emotional well-being and quality of life in patients with Parkinson’s disease,” wrote the researchers, who noted that the study was limited to a small number of patients at one center, and remarked that while the VR-augmented CBT intervention showed significant benefit over none at all, research is needed to clarify whether adding VR substantially improves the efficacy of CBT on its own.
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