The Disappearing Computer Science in Healthcare VR applications

360° Videos for Immersive Mental Health Interventions: a Systematic Review

“…The intervention was also observed as able to create a private, safe, and isolated place, helping to reduce aggressive behaviors, increase attention span and positive mood, to stimulate cognition and patients' openness to engage in activities. Similar observations have been made by caregivers, using standardized observations and semi-structured interviews, in two immersive interventions for older people, revealing an increased mental presence, more spontaneous movements, vocalizations or conversations, increased excitement, alertness and enjoyment, and more satisfactory work for caregivers, whereas the majority of participants have been temporary relieved from unpleasant feelings and thoughts (Appel et al, 2020;Lundström & Fernaeus, 2019). Another stimulative approach used individually tailored 360° videos in reminiscence therapy, in order to activate past memories in people with dementia, and found that the intervention was engaging and safe, despite no significant progress was recorded concerning the observed symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, or agitation (Coelho et al, 2020).…”

“…Dedicated devices were used to record 360° videos: Samsung 360-degree cameras equipped with bright f2.0 Lens (Appel et al, 2020;Ashmore et al, 2019), VUZE 360 stereoscopic camera (Evans et al, 2020), GoPro Fusion 360° camera (Coelho et al, 2020), or SP 360° 4K VR Cameras mounted on a tripod (Reeves et al, 2021), and the created videos were post-processed using the package iMovie v10.1.2 (Apple Inc, Ashmore et al, 2019). Different equipment was employed across the interventions, to facilitate the delivery of the immersive experience for the participants: Samsung Gear VR headsets (Appel et al, 2020, Ashmore et al, 201,9 Lindner et al, 2019Tabbaa et al, 2019;Reeves et al, 2021;Veling et al, 2021), Z4 mini-headset (BoboVR; Ashmore et al, 2019;Holmberg et al, 2020), Oculus Go headset (Evans et al, 2020), Oculus Rift VR headset with or without integrated audio system (Hussain, 2018;Coelho et al, 2020;Malihi et al, 2020), Limbix VR headset (Paul et al, 2020), Google Cardboard headset (Ashmore et al, 2019;Lindner et al, 2019), Sennheiser HD 221 headphones to render the sound and to reduce the surrounding acoustic 3 Lundström and Fernaeus (2019) environment (Appel et al, 2020;Veling et al, 2021), and a dictaphone to interview the participants.…”

“…Adding Therapeutic Value Through 360° video exposure, participants with SAD and agoraphobia managed to identify their increased vigilance for feared stimuli. They also became better aware how this increased vigilance was associated with higher anxiety (Holmberg et al, 2020;Lundström & Fernaeus, 2019). Participants with PTSD in turn observed that the awareness of feeling anxious increased anxiety even more.…”

“…In most of the studies the 360° video application was designed as an independent, stand-alone intervention (N = 10). However, in some cases, the video recordings were used as a component of a larger intervention, such as behavioral activation for major depressive disorder (MDD, Paul et al, 2020) or cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) for agoraphobia (Lundström & Fernaeus, 2019) and for PSA (Lindner et al, 2019). Half of the interventions took place in multiple settings: both clinical and residential (N = 5) or both clinical and laboratory (N = 2).…”

“…Improving Exposure Treatment Acceptability Agoraphobia patients for whom immersive 360° videos were included in CBT treatment (Lundström & Fernaeus, 2019) reported this to be a helpful technique to address their fear after long avoidance periods. Moreover, participants with SAD (Holmberg et al, 2020) felt they were able to better tolerate triggered anxiety in a simulated context compared to a real-life situation, because they had the possibility to stop the experience at will.…”