TY - GEN
T1 - Feasibility of VR Technology in Eliciting State Anxiety Changes while Walking in Older Women
AU - Ziegelman, Liran
AU - Alkurdi, Abdulrahman
AU - Hu, Yang
AU - Bishnoi, Alka
AU - Kaur, Rachneet
AU - Sowers, Richard
AU - Hsiao-Wecksler, Elizabeth T.
AU - Hernandez, Manuel E.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 IEEE.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Virtual reality (VR) technology offers an exciting way to emulate real-life walking conditions that may better elicit changes in emotional state. We aimed to determine whether VR technology is a feasible way to elicit changes in state anxiety during walking. Electrocardiogram data were collected for 18 older adult women while they navigated a baseline walking task, a dual walking task, and four walking VR environments. Using heart rate variability (HRV) analysis, we found that all four of the VR environments successfully elicited a significantly higher level of state anxiety as compared to the walking baseline, with 84% of participants eliciting a significantly lower HRV in each of the four VR conditions as compared to baseline walking. VR was also found to be a more reliable tool for increasing state anxiety as compared to a dual task, where only 47% of participants demonstrated a significantly lower HRV as compared to baseline walking. VR, therefore, could be promising as a tool to elicit changes in state anxiety and less limited in its ability to elicit changes as compared to a traditional dual task condition.
AB - Virtual reality (VR) technology offers an exciting way to emulate real-life walking conditions that may better elicit changes in emotional state. We aimed to determine whether VR technology is a feasible way to elicit changes in state anxiety during walking. Electrocardiogram data were collected for 18 older adult women while they navigated a baseline walking task, a dual walking task, and four walking VR environments. Using heart rate variability (HRV) analysis, we found that all four of the VR environments successfully elicited a significantly higher level of state anxiety as compared to the walking baseline, with 84% of participants eliciting a significantly lower HRV in each of the four VR conditions as compared to baseline walking. VR was also found to be a more reliable tool for increasing state anxiety as compared to a dual task, where only 47% of participants demonstrated a significantly lower HRV as compared to baseline walking. VR, therefore, could be promising as a tool to elicit changes in state anxiety and less limited in its ability to elicit changes as compared to a traditional dual task condition.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85122526947&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/EMBC46164.2021.9630542
DO - 10.1109/EMBC46164.2021.9630542
M3 - Conference contribution
C2 - 34891361
AN - SCOPUS:85122526947
T3 - Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS
SP - 583
EP - 586
BT - 43rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC 2021
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 43rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC 2021
Y2 - 1 November 2021 through 5 November 2021
ER -