Intensive Care Unit-Specific Virtual Reality for Psychological Recovery After ICU Treatment for COVID-19; A Brief Case Report

A substantial number of ICU survivors are expected due to the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, who are at risk for psychological impairments, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression. We designed a COVID-19 intensive care unit-specific virtual reality (ICU-VR) intervention and test...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in medicine 2021-02, Vol.7, p.629086-629086
Main Authors: Vlake, Johan H, van Bommel, Jasper, Hellemons, Merel E, Wils, Evert-Jan, Gommers, Diederik, van Genderen, Michel E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
anxiety
COVID-19
critical care
Medicine
post-intensive care syndrome
post-traumatic stress disorder
virtual reality
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Summary:A substantial number of ICU survivors are expected due to the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, who are at risk for psychological impairments, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression. We designed a COVID-19 intensive care unit-specific virtual reality (ICU-VR) intervention and tested it on one of our COVID-19 patients. The impact of event scale-revised and the hospital anxiety and depression scale showed that this patient suffered from PTSD, anxiety, and depression on the day of the intervention. One week after receiving ICU-VR, levels of PTSD, anxiety and depression had normalized, and stayed normalized until 6 months after discharge. In conclusion, innovative technologies, such as VR, have the potential to improve psychological rehabilitation, and should therefore be considered by clinicians for the treatment of ICU-related psychological sequelae after COVID-19.
ISSN:2296-858X
2296-858X
DOI:10.3389/fmed.2020.629086