Virtual reality may improve symptoms, quality of life in functional dyspepsia - Healio

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Virtual world importantly improved symptoms and prime of beingness successful a tiny subset of patients with functional dyspepsia, a presenter said astatine the ACG Annual Scientific Meeting.

“Functional dyspepsia is simply a precise communal upset of the gut-brain enactment affecting astir 10% of the colonisation worldwide, arsenic defined by the ROME IV criteria. ... Despite the prevalence of functional dyspepsia, determination are nary FDA-approved attraction options close now,” David Cangemi, MD, a gastroenterologist astatine Mayo Clinic Jacksonville, said. “Virtual reality is simply a precise promising involution that has gained a batch of attraction successful caller years. It’s been shown to efficaciously trim some acute and chronic symptom successful assorted objective settings.”

“In short, we deliberation that VR is an intriguing caller attraction enactment for functional dyspepsia,” David Cangemi, MD, a gastroenterologist astatine Mayo Clinic Jacksonville, said astatine the ACG yearly technological meeting.

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In the archetypal randomized, controlled, double-blinded aviator survey assessing virtual world (VR) for the attraction of functional dyspepsia, Cangemi and colleagues enrolled 37 patients (mean age, 45 years; 81.1% women) with functional dyspepsia to analyse the information and effectiveness of VR arsenic a caller attraction method. Patients successful the experimental limb (n = 27) received a VR headset equipped with immersive audiovisual programs, portion patients successful the power limb (n = 10) received an identical headset equipped with 2-D quality videos.

Participants utilized their headsets astatine slightest regular (average of 1.3 times/day for 23.2 minutes/day) and competed Patient Assessment of Gastrointestinal Disorders-Symptom Severity Index (PAGI-SYM) and Nepean Dyspepsia Index (NDI) questionnaires astatine baseline, 1 week and astatine the extremity of the 2-week study.

According to survey results, full PAGI-SYM scores decreased from 2.51 to 0.62 among each patients with greater betterment successful mean full PAGI-SYM scores among the experimental radical (2.51 to 1.83; mean quality = –0.68) compared with the power radical (2.5 to 2.04; mean quality = –0.46).

In addition, NDI prime of beingness scores accrued from 40.97 to 57.14 overall, with greater betterment successful the experimental vs. power radical (42 to 60.05 vs. 38.19 to 49.28). Non-serious adverse effects occurred among 40.7% and 60% of patients, respectively, but did not pb to survey termination.

“Virtual reality resulted successful important wide betterment successful symptoms and prime of beingness successful patients with functional dyspepsia,” Cangemi concluded. “Patients successful the experimental radical who received the immersive 3-D virtual world saw a numerically greater betterment successful their grounds scores and prime of life.”

He added, “In short, we deliberation that VR is an intriguing caller attraction enactment for functional dyspepsia. Clearly, larger trials of longer duration are needed to research the existent benefits of virtual reality, and we mean to beryllium a portion of that question moving forward.”