Virtual Reality to Reduce Anxiety, Agitation and Delirium in Critically Ill Patients

June 10, 2026 updated by: Pauline Go, Milton S. Hershey Medical Center
This is a pilot feasibility study examining the use of immersive virtual reality (VR) in adult intensive care unit (ICU) patients. The study evaluates whether brief, non-interactive VR sessions delivered using a commercially available standalone head-mounted display with calming, nature-based content can be delivered safely and effectively within routine SICU workflow. Exploratory objectives assess whether VR sessions are associated with changes in anxiety, agitation, delirium, pain, and sedative medication requirements. This research is not intended to evaluate the safety or effectiveness of the headset and/or the specific VR software used for the research

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

30

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Contact Backup

Study Locations

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  1. Aged ≥ 18 years old admitted to the Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU) at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.
  2. No significant uncorrectable visual or auditory impairments
  3. Estimated ICU length of stay > 48h
  4. At the time of each VR session, able to keep eyes open for at least 30 seconds, follow simple commands and able to indicate discomfort or request to stop.
  5. English speaking

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Significant hemodynamic instability
  2. Known psychotic disorders associated with delusions (e.g. schizophrenia)
  3. Severe dementia (e.g. inability to communicate or follow simple commands)
  4. History of disequilibrium syndrome or vertigo
  5. Acute hyperactive delirium, requiring physical restraints

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: VR Intervention
Critically ill patients
Device: Virtual reality (VR) therapy
VR sessions will use a commercially available headset with non-interactive, immersive content displaying calming nature-based content (e.g., ocean/beach scenes, forests, mountains) delivered through a commercially available VR application

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Feasibility of Intervention Measure (FIM)
Time Frame: From time of enrollment to end of intervention at 3 days
From time of enrollment to end of intervention at 3 days
Acceptability of Intervention Measure (AIM)
Time Frame: From time of enrollment to end of intervention at 3 days
From time of enrollment to end of intervention at 3 days
Intervention Appropriateness Measure (IAM)
Time Frame: From time of enrollment to end of intervention at 3 days
From time of enrollment to end of intervention at 3 days

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Milton S. Hershey Medical Center

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

June 2, 2026

Primary Completion (Estimated)

September 1, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

September 1, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

June 10, 2026

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 10, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

June 16, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

June 16, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 10, 2026

Last Verified

June 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • STUDY00028621

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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