Woo Olive K L, Lee Antoinette M
Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Front Digit Health. 2023 Aug 22;5:1228781. doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2023.1228781. eCollection 2023.
In view of the global aging population and growing need of palliative care, innovative intervention for effective symptom management is of urgent need. Flourishing-Life-Of-Wish Virtual Reality Therapy (FLOW-VRT) is a brief, structured, manualized, and personalized psychological intervention with theoretical foundations based on stress coping theory, self-determination theory, flow theory, and attention restoration theory. With a specific focus on relaxation, FLOW-VRT-Relaxation intends to facilitate adaptive end-of-life coping through delivering personalized relaxation. This paper reports a case study of the application of FLOW-VRT-Relaxation, and discusses its therapeutic potential as a cost-effective method for reducing palliative symptoms by addressing patient's unmet needs. The case study is a 51-year-old Chinese female, diagnosed with advanced cervix cancer, and presented with unmet psychological (i.e., unfulfilled wishes) and physical needs (i.e., pain and fatigue) before FLOW-VRT-Relaxation. To address her unmet needs, FLOW-VRT-Relaxation was delivered by a registered clinical psychologist specialized in palliative care. Need assessment was first conducted, followed by a 10-min VR travel of Japan as her own choice. Relaxation was verbally coached during VR. Right after VR, consolidation with psychological components including psychoeducation, cognitive and emotional processing, and reminiscence intervention were delivered. The patient showed improvement in physical and psychological symptoms, lower sense of loneliness and engulfment, as well as enhanced peace after FLOW-VRT-Relaxation. The current findings provide encouraging initial support for the feasibility, acceptability, and therapeutic potential of using FLOW-VRT-Relaxation as a cost-effective, scalable and personalized VR relaxation for patients under palliative care. It is hoped that with its optimal use, FLOW-VRT-Relaxation can serve as an alternative therapeutic tool that effectively improves the end-on-life care.
鉴于全球人口老龄化以及对姑息治疗的需求不断增加，迫切需要创新干预措施来有效管理症状。“畅享生命愿望虚拟现实疗法”（FLOW-VRT）是一种简短、结构化、手册化且个性化的心理干预方法，其理论基础基于压力应对理论、自我决定理论、心流理论和注意力恢复理论。FLOW-VRT-放松疗法特别注重放松，旨在通过提供个性化的放松体验来促进临终适应性应对。本文报告了FLOW-VRT-放松疗法的应用案例研究，并讨论了其作为一种经济有效的方法来减少姑息症状、满足患者未满足需求的治疗潜力。该案例研究的对象是一名51岁的中国女性，被诊断患有晚期宫颈癌，在接受FLOW-VRT-放松疗法之前，存在未满足的心理需求（即未实现的愿望）和身体需求（即疼痛和疲劳）。为满足她未满足的需求，由一名专门从事姑息治疗的注册临床心理学家提供FLOW-VRT-放松疗法。首先进行需求评估，然后根据她的选择进行了10分钟的日本虚拟现实之旅。在虚拟现实过程中进行口头放松指导。虚拟现实结束后，进行了包括心理教育、认知和情感处理以及回忆干预等心理成分的巩固。患者在接受FLOW-VRT-放松疗法后，身体和心理症状有所改善，孤独感和被吞噬感降低，内心平静感增强。目前的研究结果为将FLOW-VRT-放松疗法作为一种经济有效、可扩展且个性化的虚拟现实放松方法应用于姑息治疗患者的可行性、可接受性和治疗潜力提供了令人鼓舞的初步支持。希望通过最佳使用，FLOW-VRT-放松疗法能够成为一种有效改善临终护理的替代治疗工具。
