BACKGROUND : Exergames have been proven to effectively improve physical function, particularly in the elderly. Although, older adults were once considered a low-tech population, tailored exergame interventions have proven beneficial. However, utilizing virtual reality (VR) in group presents challenges related to both cognitive acceptance and cardiovascular tolerance. This study aimed to evaluate cardiovascular responses, safety, and exercise intensity or VR-based exergaming in an acute care setting and to explore what to consider when giving exergames to subjects with high comorbidity. METHODS : This pre-post study used the Oculus Meta Quest 2® platform in 32 elderly participants. Each completed a single exergame session. Pre- and post-session assessments included measurements of heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP). Cardiopulmonary sentinel signs were monitored thoroughly. RESULTS : Post-exergame HR was significantly higher than baseline (82 [18] beats per minute [bpm] versus 79 [17] bpm; p = 0.004; mean difference: 4 [8] bpm). Blood pressure decreased slightly, but not significantly (SBP: −1 [14] mmHg, p = 0.837; DBP: 0 [12] mmHg, p = 0.829). Most participants experienced light-intensity activities (n = 26, 81%). No sentinel events occurred. CONCLUSIONS A single session of VR exergaming safely increased HR above baseline in elderly participants, with activity predominantly classified as light intensity. Further studies should explore the determinants of exergame intensity to optimize prescriptions and tailoring.
elderly ; exergames ; heart rate ; virtual reality

The study aimed to examine the effects of virtual reality (VR) technology-based phase I cardiac rehabilitation (CR) program in elderly coronary heart disease (CHD) patients after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Thirty-six cases of elderly CHD patients who underwent PCI in the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University from June 2022 to April 2023 were recruited by convenience sampling method. The patients were randomly assigned by means of random digital table method to two study groups: control group (n = 18), which received conventional nursing intervention after PCI, and experimental group (n = 18), which received a combined program of conventional nursing intervention together with CR program based on VR technology. The 6 min walk test (6MWT), Simple Physical Performance Battery (SPPB), SF-36 scale, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and Impact of Events Scale-Revised (IES-R) were tested before and after rehabilitation. Moreover, the incidence of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) was recorded at 3 months after PCI. After VR-based CR, the 6MWT distance and SPPB scores of patients in the experimental group were higher than those in control group (P < 0.05). The HADS scores and IES-R scores of the patients in the experimental group were lower than those in control group (P < 0.01), and the difference in SF-36 scale scores was not statistically significant between two groups (P > 0.05). The incidence of MACE was not significantly different at 3 months after PCI (P > 0.05). These results suggest that VR-based phase I CR program mitigates the degree of PCI postoperative stress, anxiety, and depression in elderly CHD patients, however, enhances the resistance to fatigue and does not increase the risk of adverse cardiac events, suggesting it is a safe intervention.
Aged ; Humans ; Anxiety ; Cardiac Rehabilitation/methods* ; Coronary Disease/surgery* ; Percutaneous Coronary Intervention/adverse effects* ; Virtual Reality

Visually induced motion sickness(VIMS)is the major barrier to be broken in the development of virtual reality(VR)technology,which seriously affects the progress in the VR industry.Therefore,the detection and evaluation of VIMS has become a hot research topic nowadays.We review the progress in physiological assessment of VIMS in VR based on several physiological indicators,including electroencephalogram(EEG),postural sway,eye movements,heart rate variability,and skin electrical signals,and summarize the available therapies,aiming to provide an outlook on the future research directions of VIMS.
Humans ; Motion Sickness/diagnosis* ; Virtual Reality ; Heart Rate

Electronic skin has shown great application potential in many fields such as healthcare monitoring and human-machine interaction due to their excellent sensing performance, mechanical properties and biocompatibility. This paper starts from the materials selection and structures design of electronic skin, and summarizes their different applications in the field of healthcare equipment, especially current development status of wearable sensors with different functions, as well as the application of electronic skin in virtual reality. The challenges of electronic skin in the field of wearable devices and healthcare, as well as our corresponding strategies, are discussed to provide a reference for further advancing the research of electronic skin.
Humans ; Wearable Electronic Devices ; Virtual Reality

The primary cause of injury and death in the elderly has been reflected in fall the elderly, so the application of reasonable and effective prevention strategies has great significance in reducing the risk of fall in the elderly. The research progress of virtual reality technology applied in preventing fall in the elderly at home and abroad over the years was systematically reviewed in this study. The mechanism of the technology in preventing fall in the elderly was mainly elaborated from five aspects of improving balance ability, gait disturbance, cognitive impairment, muscle strength and the fear psychology of falling. The purpose of this thesis is to broaden the research ideas of medical personnel on the prevention of fall of the elderly, provide more effective clinical practice plans, reduce the occurrence of fall, and guarantee the safety of the elderly.
Aged ; Humans ; Gait ; Muscle Strength ; Technology ; Virtual Reality

Animal survival necessitates adaptive behaviors in volatile environmental contexts. Virtual reality (VR) technology is instrumental to study the neural mechanisms underlying behaviors modulated by environmental context by simulating the real world with maximized control of contextual elements. Yet current VR tools for rodents have limited flexibility and performance (e.g., frame rate) for context-dependent cognitive research. Here, we describe a high-performance VR platform with which to study contextual behaviors immersed in editable virtual contexts. This platform was assembled from modular hardware and custom-written software with flexibility and upgradability. Using this platform, we trained mice to perform context-dependent cognitive tasks with rules ranging from discrimination to delayed-sample-to-match while recording from thousands of hippocampal place cells. By precise manipulations of context elements, we found that the context recognition was intact with partial context elements, but impaired by exchanges of context elements. Collectively, our work establishes a configurable VR platform with which to investigate context-dependent cognition with large-scale neural recording.
Animals ; Mice ; Rodentia ; Virtual Reality ; Cognition ; Recognition, Psychology

OBJECTIVES: To study the virtual reality-pattern visual evoked potential (VR-PVEP) P100 waveform characteristics of monocular visual impairment with different impaired degrees under simultaneous binocular perception and monocular stimulations. METHODS: A total of 55 young volunteers with normal vision (using decimal recording method, far vision ≥0.8 and near vision ≥0.5) were selected to simulate three groups of monocular refractive visual impairment by interpolation method. The sum of near and far vision ≤0.2 was Group A, the severe visual impairment group; the sum of near and far vision <0.8 was Group B, the moderate visual impairment group; and the sum of near and far vision ≥0.8 was Group C, the mild visual impairment group. The volunteers' binocular normal visions were set as the control group. The VR-PVEP P100 peak times measured by simultaneous binocular perception and monocular stimulation were compared at four spatial frequencies 16×16, 24×24, 32×32 and 64×64. RESULTS: In Group A, the differences between P100 peak times of simulant visual impairment eyes and simultaneous binocular perception at 24×24, 32×32 and 64×64 spatial frequencies were statistically significant (P<0.05); and the P100 peak time of normal vision eyes at 64×64 spatial frequency was significantly different from the simulant visual impairment eyes (P<0.05). In Group B, the differences between P100 peak times of simulant visual impairment eyes and simultaneous binocular perception at 16×16, 24×24 and 64×64 spatial frequencies were statistically significant (P<0.05); and the P100 peak time of normal vision eyes at 64×64 spatial frequency was significantly different from the simulant visual impairment eyes (P<0.05). In Group C, there was no significant difference between P100 peak times of simulant visual impairment eyes and simultaneous binocular perception at all spatial frequencies (P>0.05). There was no significant difference in the P100 peak times measured at all spatial frequencies between simulant visual impairment eyes and simultaneous binocular perception in the control group (P>0.05). CONCLUSIONS VR-PVEP can be used for visual acuity evaluation of patients with severe and moderate monocular visual impairment, which can reflect the visual impairment degree caused by ametropia. VR-PVEP has application value in the objective evaluation of visual function and forensic clinical identification.
Humans ; Evoked Potentials, Visual ; Vision, Ocular ; Vision, Binocular/physiology* ; Vision Disorders/diagnosis* ; Virtual Reality

There are two modes to display panoramic movies in virtual reality (VR) environment: non-stereoscopic mode (2D) and stereoscopic mode (3D). It has not been fully studied whether there are differences in the activation effect between these two continuous display modes on emotional arousal and what characteristics of the related neural activity are. In this paper, we designed a cognitive psychology experiment in order to compare the effects of VR-2D and VR-3D on emotional arousal by analyzing synchronously collected scalp electroencephalogram signals. We used support vector machine (SVM) to verify the neurophysiological differences between the two modes in VR environment. The results showed that compared with VR-2D films, VR-3D films evoked significantly higher electroencephalogram (EEG) power (mainly reflected in α and β activities). The significantly improved β wave power in VR-3D mode showed that 3D vision brought more intense cortical activity, which might lead to higher arousal. At the same time, the more intense α activity in the occipital region of the brain also suggested that VR-3D films might cause higher visual fatigue. By the means of neurocinematics, this paper demonstrates that EEG activity can well reflect the effects of different vision modes on the characteristics of the viewers' neural activities. The current study provides theoretical support not only for the future exploration of the image language under the VR perspective, but for future VR film shooting methods and human emotion research.
Arousal ; Electroencephalography ; Emotions/physiology* ; Humans ; Motion Pictures ; Virtual Reality

Mixed reality is a new three-dimensional presentation technology that combines the virtual digital world with the real world, which has been initially applied in the field of hepatobiliary surgery. Compared with virtual reality, augmented reality and three-dimensional visualization technology, mixed reality technology has unique advantages in preoperative evaluation and formulation of surgical plan, real-time accurate navigation during operation and three-dimensional virtual teaching. And it is a new generation of auxiliary tool for precision hepatobiliary surgery. This paper describes the application and research progress of mixed reality technology in the field of hepatobiliary surgery, and discusses its application potential and current limitations.
Augmented Reality ; Humans ; Imaging, Three-Dimensional ; Surgery, Computer-Assisted ; Technology ; Virtual Reality

Objective: To explore the effect of emotional optimization of workplace employees in immersive virtual natural environment. Methods: In July 2020, 15 subjects were selected to complete two groups of treadmill walking training experiments in virtual natural environment and daily environment respectively. At the same time, the subjects' skin electrical (EDA) , pulse frequency (Pf) , respiratory frequency (Rf) physiological data and Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) data before and after walking were collected; the mean value of three dimensions of SAM and the emotion difference before and after the experiment were calculated. The differences of physiological indexes and subjective mood changes of subjects were tested by paired sample t-test. Results: Compared with the daily environment, the ΔEDA, ΔPf and ΔRf of the subjects in the virtual natural environment were all decreased , and the differences were statistically significant (P<0.05). There were statistically significant differences in pleasure and arousal between subjects before and after using the virtual natural environment (P <0.05). Compared with the daily environment, the Δpleasure degree of subjects using the virtual natural environment increased, and the Δarousal degree and Δdominance degree decreased, and the differences were statistically significant (P <0.05). Conclusion: Walking in virtual natural environment can help subjects improve their mood, relax and improve the regulation ability of autonomic nervous system.
Arousal ; Emotions/physiology* ; Heart Rate ; Humans ; Virtual Reality ; Workplace