The Use of Virtual Reality Exercise Games to Improve Prehabilitation Exercise Compliance in Patients Awaiting Bariatric Surgery

Exercise is a vital part of cardiopulmonary conditioning, this means improving general fitness. Undertaking surgery has been likened, physiologically, to running a marathon. It is essential that before any operation the patient undergoing the procedure is as optimised as possible.

Bariatric surgery is no exception. Patients with a high weight often have other conditions most commonly related to the heart and lungs through the excess visceral fat content. This places this group of patients at particular risk of potentially, albeit rare, of having a major and possibly catastrophic cardiac event on the operating table during anaesthetic. Pre-operative conditioning is therefore vital in this group of patients who are often young and not other than their weight necessarily unwell. Exercise plays an important role in the run up to surgery however, many pre-operative exercise prescription programs in the past have failed, often related to the lack of compliance. However, this maybe due to the poor body image they have of themselves presenting in public to the gym or swimming pool.

Current Virtual Reality Games propose that, through their use they encourage exercise and increase heart rate. Given the more personalised nature of this form of media over public engagement, this new media may offer an opportunity to explore whether there is any benefit in terms of pre-conditioning this group of patients prior to their surgery. This study aims, in its first instance, to evaluate whether the Virtual Reality promoted exercise games encourage and can sustain increased activity prior to surgery.