Effectiveness of Virtual Reality-Based Early Rehabilitation Strategies on Pain, Sleep, Anxiety, Balance, Cognition, and Limb Motor Function in Adult Intensive Care Unit Patients: Systematic Review and

7 hours ago

Virtual reality-based early rehabilitation intervention (VR-ERI) is an emerging strategy for functional recovery in critically ill patients.
A systematic review and meta-analysis of 16 RCTs involving 1356 patients was conducted to evaluate VR-ERI's feasibility, safety, and efficacy.
VR-ERI showed potential trends in improving ICU anxiety and subjective sleep quality, with very low certainty of evidence.
At follow-up, VR-ERI demonstrated trends toward improved balance, limb motor function, and cognitive function, with low to moderate certainty.
No significant differences were found for objective sleep measures or ICU pain, and no serious adverse events were reported.
The overall certainty of evidence is low due to high risk of bias, substantial heterogeneity, and imprecision.
VR-ERI may serve as a nonpharmacological adjunct in early ICU rehabilitation, but clinical translation requires more rigorous research and consideration of cost and patient suitability.

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