OBJECTIVES

Cognitive impairment is common across mood disorders (MD) and psychosis-spectrum disorders (PSD) but there is a lack of real-life pro-cognitive training programmes. Fully immersive virtual reality (VR) has the potential to ensure motivating, engaging cognition training directly relevant to patients' daily lives. This randomized, controlled proof-of-concept study investigated the feasibility and cognitive benefits of short-term VR-assisted training.

METHODS

Forty patients with MD or PSD were randomized to one week of VR-assisted training (n ​= ​20) or treatment as usual (TAU; n ​= ​20). They were assessed at baseline and after one week with a VR cognition test, neuropsychological tests, and questionnaires regarding user experience. Patients in the training group underwent two VR training sessions in a kitchen environment that involved solving tasks related to planning and cooking a meal using various cognitive strategies. They also completed two home assignments during which they applied the acquired strategies.

RESULTS

The completion rate was 100%. Patients reported high enjoyment and moderate-to-high presence in the VR environment and minimal motion sickness. VR training improved the global VR-based cognitive composite score with a large effect size compared with TAU ((1, 38) ​= ​11,29,  ​= ​.002,  ​= ​0.23). Posthoc assessments of VR subtests showed that this improvement was driven primarily by a large effect on psychomotor speed ((1, 38) ​= ​22.78,  ​< ​.001,  ​= ​0.39), but no effects were observed on other VR subtests or on traditional neuropsychological tests.

CONCLUSION

VR-assisted cognition training showed high feasibility and improved aspects of cognition after only one week. We therefore plan a larger trial to investigate the cognitive benefits of four-weeks VR-assisted cognition training.