Virtual Reality Meditation for Fatigue in Persons With Rheumatoid Arthritis

RA is a debilitating disease that affects over 1.3 million people in the U.S. While recent advances in medicine have enhanced management of the disease, a staggeringly large portion of outpatients with RA still suffer from fatigue. A profound, unrelenting exhaustion affecting energy, motivation, and concentration, fatigue often develops over time without an inciting event. Fatigue includes complex interactions between physiological, psychological, and behavioral processes, making it not only insidious, but difficult to treat. Being multifaceted, fatigue impacts depression, mood, and physical activity, and can be exacerbated by pain, and current treatment options target each of these correlates of fatigue. Meditation has been extensively and effectively utilized in RA and other rheumatic diseases, yet, to date, VR meditation has yet to be deployed in this population.

This feasibility study will employ a mixed-methods design. Thirty adult outpatients with clinically-diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis will be enrolled from a local rheumatology clinic and utilize VR in their own home. Donning an Oculus Quest VR headset and using two handheld controllers, patients will have the opportunity to choose from several virtual outdoor settings, three types of meditation, and three session lengths. PROMIS measures of fatigue, depression, mood, pain, and physical activity will be collected at baseline and weekly intervals for the first 4 weeks, after which, an eight-week follow-up measure will be taken. Semi-structured patient interviews will be used to capture patient's experience of RA, fatigue, as well as experience of the virtual environment. This feasibility study's results will address the acceptability, desirability, implementation, practicality, adaptation, integration, expansion, and "limited" efficacy testing of utilizing VR meditation for managing fatigue in outpatients with RA.