Effect of Virtual Reality Mood State Videos on Balance Performance

PURPOSE: Poor balance performance is significantly associated with an increased risk of musculoskeletal injury across various age groups. Mood states have been shown to impact the extent to which active individuals are predisposed to and successfully recover from musculoskeletal injury. Virtual reality (VR) technology is a tool that can be used to simulate an environment to elicit certain mood states. This study sought to explore if virtual reality mood state videos could affect balance performance to help better inform physical rehabilitation clinicians in their development of rehabilitative programming for active individuals in relation to balance training. METHODS: Twenty-six participants (M age = 21.54 2.55) completed 2 baseline balance performance tests: the Limits of Stability and Athletic Single Leg Stability tests via the Biodex Balance System. Afterwards, the participants were randomly assigned to either a positive or negative mood state video group. Thirteen participants (M age = 21.31 2.32) within the positive mood state group were exposed to a VR video on puppies competing in American football. The 13 participants (M age = 21.77 2.83) in the negative mood state video group were exposed to a VR video on homeless children. After the videos, all participants were then asked to repeat the balance tests. RESULTS: There were no found differences in balance performance between the two mood state intervention groups at baseline. The positive mood state intervention group demonstrated a significantly lower anterior-posterior right-leg index on the Athletic Single Leg Stability test after exposure (P = .036). CONCLUSION: This finding demonstrated that positive mood states may improve dominant single-leg balance performance, while negative mood states may not necessarily be as impactful on balance performance as previously thought. VR technology may also have the potential to play a role in future psychosocial interventions that will aid rehabilitation clinicians in developing programming that is necessarily psychologically informed.