XR at IC

The admission of patients to intensive care units (ICU) is sometimes planned after a large operation. However, most admissions are acute, because of life-threatening infections or trauma as a result of accidents. Their stay can last from a couple of days to a couple of weeks. ICU patients are often in pain, in fragile health condition, and connected to various devices such as a ventilator, intravenous drip, and monitoring equipment. The resulting lack of mobilization, makes patients lose 1-3% of muscle power for each day they are in the ICU. Within 2 weeks, patients can lose up to 50% of their muscle mass.

Early mobilization of ICU patients reduces their time on a respirator and their hospital length of stay. Because of this, ICUs have started early mobilization physical therapy. However, there is a lack of solutions for patients that properly handle fear of movement, are sufficiently personalized to the possibilities and needs of the individual and motivate recurring use in this context.

Meanwhile, various technological advances enable new solutions that might bring benefits for this specific use case. Hospitals are experimenting with screens and projections on walls and ceilings to improve their patients’ stay. Standalone virtual reality and mixed reality headsets have become affordable, available and easy to use.

In this project, we want to investigate: How can XR-technologies help long-stay ICU patients with early mobilization, with specific attention to the issues of fear of movement, personalization to the individual’s possibilities, needs and compliance over multiple sessions?

The research will be carried out in co-creation with the target group and will consist of a state-of-the-art literature review and an explorative study.