Intervention Study of Virtual Reality Technology on Sympathetic Nerves and Emotion in Patients with Acute Coronary...

This study aimed to investigate the effects of virtual reality (VR) technology on the sympathetic nervous system and the emotional status in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS).

A total of 102 patients with ACS, who were treated in the department of cardiology at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University from December 2022 to December 2024, were enrolled into the study. Then, they were randomly divided into a control group (n=50) and an intervention group (n=52) using a random number table. The control group received conventional treatment, while the intervention group underwent virtual reality (VR) therapy combined with conventional treatment. The differences in heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), time-domain indices of heart rate variability (HRV), standard deviation of the normal respiratory rate (RR) intervals (SDNN), standard deviation of the average normal-to-normal (NN) [NS1.1] intervals in 5-minute segments of an entire recording (SDANN), root-mean-square of the successive differences of adjacent RR intervals (RMSSD), low frequency(LF)/high frequency (HF) ratio, LF, HF, three catecholamine indicators [norepinephrine (NE), epinephrine (E), dopamine (DA)], and psychological status assessed by Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) were observed and calculated before and after treatment in both groups.

The increases in ∆SDNN and ∆SDANN in the intervention group were significantly greater than those in the control group, and the decreases in ∆LF, ∆LF/ HF ratio, ∆NE, ∆SAS and ∆HADS in the intervention group were significantly greater than those in the control group (all P<0.05).

VR technology can alleviate the hyperactivity of the sympathetic nervous system and improve anxiety in patients with ACS.