Recruiting

Virtual RealityVirtual Reality as an Adjunct to Management of Pain and Anxiety in Palliative Care

Sponsor:

Riverview Health Centre

Code:

NCT04138095

Conditions

Cancer

Heart Failure

Copd

ALS

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 0+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Interventions

Virtual Reality

Study Details

Brief summary:

Virtual reality has been shown to be an effective way to treat pain and anxiety in various different settings. Palliative care is an area of medicine that often deals with patients suffering from pain and anxiety. The medication used to manage these symptoms are often opioids and benzodiazepines due to their rapid onset however they do have a significant side effect burden on patients. Very few studies have looked at the effect of virtual reality in this patient population. The goal of this study is to measure if virtual reality can decrease the required amount of medication used in managing pain and anxiety in palliative care. The secondary outcome will look at perceived benefit by patients

Conditions

Cancer

Heart Failure

Copd

ALS

Study ID

NCT04138095

Start date

Oct 1, 2020

Status verified date

Mar, 2021

Completion date

Mar 30, 2021

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Dec 31, 2020

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 0+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

Enrolled on the palliative care program and admitted to Riverview Health Centre Palliative Care unit
Using 2 or more doses above their regular scheduled dose of opioids and/or benzodiazepines
Reading/understanding fluency in English

Exclusion Criteria:

Patients who cannot wear the headset due to a structural cause (i.e. head and neck malignancy making wearing headset uncomfortable
Patients who are legally blind
Participants who cannot tolerate the HMD and VR due to simulator sickness will have to be withdrawn from the study by the investigator.

Study Design

Enrollment

8 participants

Anticipated

Intervention Model

Single group

Primary purpose

Treatment

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

other: Virtual Reality

As this is a within subject design, participants will act as their own control. Participants will have access to their baseline opioids and benzodiazepines for pain and anxiety. Every second day they will have access to virtual reality as an adjunct to their opioids and benzodiazepines to manage their symptoms

Interventions

Virtual Reality

Participants will have access to an Oculus Quest Virtual Reality Headset every second day as an alternative to opioids for pain management and benzodiazepines for anxiety management

Primary outcome measure

Opioid and Benzodiazepine use [ Time Frame: 10 days ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Stefan Riel, MD

204-803-5051 sriel@wrha.mb.ca

Zahra Moussavi, PhD

204-474-7023 Zahra.Moussavi@Umanitoba.ca

Locations

Riverview Health Centre

Recruiting

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, R3L2P4

Contacts

Stefan Riel, MD

204-803-5051 sljriel@gmail.com

More Information

Sponsor

Riverview Health Centre

Last update posted

Mar 10, 2021

Last verified

Mar, 2021

Keywords

Palliative Care
Virtual Reality
Pain
Anxiety

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by Riverview Health Centre on 2021-03-10.