This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

A virtual reality landscape of a flowing river and trees, accompanied by classical music, can significantly reduce patients' blood pressure within 15 minutes of being seen in an emergency department.

In a randomized controlled trial of 130 adult patients who arrived at an emergency department with hypertensive urgency—significantly high blood pressure without symptoms or signs of acute organ damage—researchers found that viewing natural landscapes with a virtual reality (VR) headset while listening to soothing music by composers including Bach, Mozart, Debussy, Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky also reduced patients' anxiety. The research was presented at the European Emergency Medicine Congress.

Speaking before the congress, the study's first author and principal investigator, Dr. Safa Dönmez, an associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Health Sciences, Ankara City Health Application and Research Center, Ankara, Turkey, said that as far as he knew, this was the first study to investigate combining VR and classical music to help patients with severely elevated blood pressure in emergency departments.

"Patients who arrive in the emergency department with markedly elevated blood pressure—readings of 180 mmHg or higher on the top number, or 110 mmHg or higher on the bottom number—are extremely common. We treat them with blood pressure medication, but what I kept noticing was how anxious and frightened many of these patients are.

"That matters medically, not just emotionally, because anxiety causes the body to release stress hormones that tighten the blood vessels and push blood pressure even higher.

Source link