Development and Evaluation of a Virtual Reality Puzzle Game to Decrease Food Intake: Randomized Controlled Trial

Enhancing Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Training with Mixed Reality: Improving Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Performance and Enjoyment

Cardiac arrests stand as a leading cause of mortality worldwide. When performed timely, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can significantly improve a person's chance of survival during a cardiac arrest. Given that the majority of cardiac arrests happen outside of hospitals, it becomes crucial to equip as many laypeople as possible with CPR skills. Recently, mixed reality has garnered attention as a potential tool for CPR training. This study, with a randomized controlled trial (RCT), tested the effectiveness of a mixed reality CPR training compared to traditional training among laypeople (N = 59). Results revealed that participants in the mixed reality training either showed similar (i.e., compressions per minute, exam scores) or better (i.e., compression depth) CPR performance compared to participants that received the traditional training. Furthermore, the mixed reality training was perceived as more enjoyable than the traditional training. Finally, across conditions, participants reported comparable levels of presence, indicating a similar sense of being in a CPR situation. Based on these findings, we conclude that mixed reality CPR training can serve as a viable alternative for traditional CPR training. Especially, the enjoyable nature of mixed reality can boost motivation and encourage more people to follow or refresh previous CPR training.

The Impact of Modifiable Preoral Factors on Swallowing and Nutritional Outcomes in Healthy Adults: A Scoping Review

PURPOSE

Swallowing has previously been characterized as consisting of four phases; however, it has become apparent that these four phases are not truly discrete and may be influenced by factors occurring prior to bolus entrance into the oral cavity (i.e., preoral factors). Still, the relationship between these factors and swallowing remains poorly understood. The aim of this review was to synthesize and characterize the literature pertaining to the influence of preoral factors on swallowing and nutritional outcomes in healthy individuals.

METHOD

We performed a scoping review, searching the databases of PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane, and Scopus. Search terms included those related to swallowing, experience of preoral factors, and exclusionary terminology to reduce animal and pediatric literature. Our initial search revealed 5,560 unique articles, of which 153 met our inclusionary criteria and were accepted into the review.

RESULTS

Of the accepted articles, 78% were focused exclusively on nutritional outcomes, 17% were focused on both swallowing and nutritional outcomes, and 5% were focused on solely swallowing outcomes. Of the preoral factors examined, 99% were exteroceptive in nature (17% olfactory, 44% visual, 21% auditory, 7% tactile, 11% other), while 1% were proprioceptive in nature.

CONCLUSIONS

This review supports the influence of preoral factors on swallowing and nutritional outcomes. However, there is a large emphasis on the visual modality and on nutritional outcomes. Nearly none of the literature found in this review directly measured swallowing safety, efficiency, or physiology. Future work will benefit from a larger focus on proprioceptive preoral factors as they relate to swallowing outcomes.

Virtual reality in the diagnostic and therapy for mental disorders: A systematic review

BACKGROUND

Virtual reality (VR) technologies are playing an increasingly important role in the diagnostics and treatment of mental disorders.

OBJECTIVE

To systematically review the current evidence regarding the use of VR in the diagnostics and treatment of mental disorders.

DATA SOURCE

Systematic literature searches via PubMed (last literature update: 9^th of May 2022) were conducted for the following areas of psychopathology: Specific phobias, panic disorder and agoraphobia, social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders, dementia disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, depression, autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and addiction disorders.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

To be eligible, studies had to be published in English, to be peer-reviewed, to report original research data, to be VR-related, and to deal with one of the above-mentioned areas of psychopathology.

STUDY EVALUATION

For each study included, various study characteristics (including interventions and conditions, comparators, major outcomes and study designs) were retrieved and a risk of bias score was calculated based on predefined study quality criteria.

RESULTS

Across all areas of psychopathology, k = 9315 studies were inspected, of which k = 721 studies met the eligibility criteria. From these studies, 43.97% were considered assessment-related, 55.48% therapy-related, and 0.55% were mixed. The highest research activity was found for VR exposure therapy in anxiety disorders, PTSD and addiction disorders, where the most convincing evidence was found, as well as for cognitive trainings in dementia and social skill trainings in autism spectrum disorder.

CONCLUSION

While VR exposure therapy will likely find its way successively into regular patient care, there are also many other promising approaches, but most are not yet mature enough for clinical application.

REVIEW REGISTRATION

PROSPERO register CRD42020188436.

FUNDING

The review was funded by budgets from the University of Bonn. No third party funding was involved.