Exploring the Potential Benefit of Immersive Virtual Reality to Reduce Anxiety in Individuals with Voice Disorders, a Systematic Review
Objective: Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) has shown much promise in behavioral health interventions, particularly for anxiety reduction. While the potential of IVR has been recently explored in the treatment of voice disorders, no studies have specifically focused on its effects on anxiety reduction within this domain. This systematic review aims to evaluate and compare the effects of IVR-based interventions, both independently and in combination with speech and language therapy (SLT), on communicative function in individuals with voice disorders. Methods: A comprehensive search was conducted using electronic databases: PubMed, ERIC Proquest, SCOPUS, and Web of Science Databases. The same strategy was used in all databases that examined IVR applications in behavioral health. Results: A total of 4764 studies were screened for relevance to the topic, of which 337 were initially reviewed. A smaller subset, represented by 29 studies, was included for the final review. Results showed that Individuals with behavioral health conditions who underwent IVR-assisted treatment, showed significant improvement in treatment outcomes. Further, when analysis was carried out specifically for benefits to reduce anxiety, positive results post-IVR-assisted treatment were significant. Additionally, individuals with communication disorders who underwent combined IVR-SLT treatment showed significant improvement for a wide range of receptive and expressive communicative capacities. Conclusions: This review highlights that IVR-assisted treatment for behavioral health broadly, when treating anxiety specifically, and for IVR in combination with SLT, can effectively enhance treatment outcomes. Given known benefits for reducing anxiety in vocal production, our findings advocate for further exploration of the potential benefit of IVR-assisted anxiety reduction to optimize therapeutic approaches in voice disorders management.