Approximately 175,000 women are newly diagnosed with invasive breast cancer annually. Seventy-seven percent of new cases and 84 percent of breast cancer deaths occur in women aged 50 and older. The incidence of breast cancer is highest among the 75_79 age group. Chemotherapy is frequently prescribed for these women, either prior to or after surgery, in an attempt to diminish tumor mass, eradicate occult micrometastatic disease, and increase disease-free survival. The chances for survival are enhanced if women receive all of the recommended chemotherapy treatments. However, because of chemotherapy-related distress symptoms, women often have difficulty adhering to the prescribed schedule. Helping women to tolerate the needed treatments is critical to their survival. The primary goal of this study is to explore the feasibility of using virtual reality as a distraction intervention with women aged 50 and older who are receiving chemotherapy for breast cancer. With virtual reality, the individual wears a headset that projects an image with the corresponding sounds. The sense of touch is involved through use of a computer mouse that allows manipulation of the image. A crossover design will be used to determine whether virtual reality is an effective distraction intervention for reducing chemotherapy_ related symptom distress in women with breast cancer and whether virtual reality has a lasting effect? The Symptom Distress Scale Distress Scale (SDS) will be used to measure the global construct of symptom distress. Specific measures of symptom distress will include the Revised Piper Fatigue Scale, and the State Anxiety. For two matched chemotherapy treatments, one pre-test and two post-test measures will be employed. Participants will be randomly assigned to receive the virtual reality distraction intervention during one chemotherapy treatment and will receive no distraction intervention (control condition) during an alternate chemotherapy treatment. The order in which the treatment and control conditions occur will be determined by random assignment. Paired t-tests will be used to test for differences in levels of symptom distress: 1) immediately following chemotherapy treatments and 2) 48 hours following the completion of chemotherapy treatments. An open-ended evaluation of the ease of equipment questionnaire will be used to elicit the subject?s distractor and desire to use VR as a distractor and desire to us VR during future treatments.
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