Virtual Reality to Alleviate Claustrophobia During MRI (CLAUSTROVR)

Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Status: Completed

Conditions: Claustrophobia

Treatments: Device: Immersion in virtual reality using Nordic Neurolab(™) Visual System

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04754958

VRMRI_LNCO2021

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study evaluates if our Virtual Reality (VR) simulation inside the MRI efficiently alleviates symptoms of claustrophobia for patients during the MRI examination.

Full description

Anxiety of claustrophobic patients during MRI scan leads to movements of patients (which cause imaging artefacts), interruptions or even abortions of imaging scans, eventually requiring to reschedule the examination. Improving these symptoms by creating a VR experiences adapted to the physical constraints of the MRI environment, such as "disappearing the scanner", not only improves the subjective experience of the participant, but has immediate impacts the time spent on the examination, on personnel costs, and resource availability (scanner time).

This study aims at comparing claustrophobic patients in an A|B group design with or without VR intervention. Primary outcomes include subjective reports from patients (Acceptability and Demand) and practitioners (Implementation, Practicality, Adaptation, Integration, Expansion). Secondary outcomes include scanning efficacy based e.g. on the imaging quality, number of times a scan is interrupted by the user and the total duration of a scan. Another non-claustrophobic patients' group will be tested for for obtaining feedback on the general benefit of VR immersion on patients' experience.

Enrollment: 24 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 40 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• indicating suffering from claustrophobia
• Be aged between 18 and 40 year-old
• Being able to give consent
• Being able to understand and speak French or English
• Being MRI-compatible

Exclusion criteria

• Epilepsy or illnesses affecting the brain, such as HIV, Lyme disease or meningitis
• Psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, autism, obsessive compulsive disorder.
• History of 1 year or more of addiction to drugs such as cannabis, alcohol, cocain, heroine, LSD.
• Taking sleeping pills or anti-anxiety medication before the exam

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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24 participants in 2 patient groups

VR

Experimental group

Description:

In addition to standard care during MRI scan, patient receives VR intervention.

Treatment:

Device: Immersion in virtual reality using Nordic Neurolab(™) Visual System

No VR

No Intervention group

Description:

Standard of care during MRI scan.