Background: Patients undergoing critical care can experience negative outcomes due to a variety of causes such as lack of sleep, prolonged pain, and anxiety. Our goal was to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of using meditative virtual reality (VR) to improve the hospital experience of intensive care unit (ICU) patients.• Methods: A Google Daydream headset was used to expose ICU patients to commercially available VR applications focused on calmness and relaxation (Google Spotlight Stories and RelaxVR). Sessions were conducted once daily for up to seven days. Outcome measures including pain level, anxiety, depression, medication administration, sleep quality, heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, delirium status, and patient ratings of the VR system were evaluated using paired t-tests and mixed models where appropriate.• Results: 46 participants (M = 50 years, SD = 18, 65% Male) completed the study. The clinical effects of VR were minimal for pain, sleep, and physiological measures. Delirium prevalence after VR exposure was low (13%). Most participants had strong positive reactions to the VR exposure and showed considerable improvements in affect over time.• Conclusion: The initial feasibility of exposing patients to VR in ICU was demonstrated.The lessons learned from deploying VR in the ICU are discussed and future avenues of research on the use of VR in the ICU are identified.• Trial registration: The trial was registered on December 29, 2017 with ClinicalTrials.gov with the identifier: NCT03385993.

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The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread challenges and revealed vulnerabilities across global health care systems. In response, many health care providers turned to telehealth solutions, which have been widely embraced and are likely to become standard for modern care. Immersive extended reality (XR) technologies have the potential to enhance telehealth with greater acceptability, engagement, and presence. However, numerous technical, logistic, and clinical barriers remain to the incorporation of XR technology into telehealth practice. COVID-19 may accelerate the union of XR and telehealth as researchers explore novel solutions to close social distances. In this viewpoint, we highlight research demonstrations of XR telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic and discuss future directions to make XR the next evolution of remote health care.

Although there is no consensus as to the specific skills that constitute critical thinking, there is general agreement that identifying logical fallacies is an important component skill. Clearly defined logical fallacies are suited to teaching arrangements that focus on establishing conditional discriminations, as is the case with equivalence‐based instruction (EBI) methods. EBI methods have been successfully delivered using web‐based course management software and have rapidly produced socially significant learning outcomes. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of a web‐based EBI program for teaching students to recognize and identify logical fallacies by comparing the outcomes of EBI to a self‐instruction and a no‐instruction control group. EBI was more effective and more efficient when compared to both self‐instruction and no‐instruction controls. Additionally, untrained relations were evident only after EBI.

Immersive virtual environments can produce a state of behaviour referred to as ‘presence’, during which the individual responds to the virtual environment as if it were real. Presence can be arranged to scientifically evaluate and affect our consciousness within a controlled virtual environment. This phenomenon makes the use of virtual environments amenable to existing and in-development forms of therapy for various conditions. Delirium in the intensive care unit (ICU) is one such condition for which virtual reality (VR) technology has not been evaluated to date. We are currently assessing the feasibility and utility of a delirium prevention and treatment system, which implements VR to improve quality of sleep, reduce pain, lower usage of sedatives, and stimulate cognition. The proposed system will consist of 3-axis wearable accelerometers, 6-DOF position trackers, a VR system and apps designed to promote sleep quality and mindfulness. Our a priori hypothesis is that our VR therapy system would lower the occurrence of delirium in patients admitted to ICUs.