Arts and Health
Dr. Julia Chabot, geriatrician at St. Mary’s Hospital in Montreal and member of the Arts and Health Axis, has initiated an innovative project funded in part by the CREAT Chair, in collaboration with Florence Troncy, Executive Director of SAMS (Société pour les Arts en Milieu de Santé), and Dr. Olivier Beauchet, head of the Arts and Health Axis. This project aims to assess the feasibility and explore the effects of classical music delivered via video through a virtual reality headset on the mental health of patients hospitalized in the intensive functional rehabilitation unit (URFI) at the Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal (IUGM) and on the geriatric hospitalization unit at St. Mary’s Hospital Center, where recruitment began in the spring of 2024.
In practical terms, patients watch and listen to musicians playing classical music through a virtual reality (VR) headset. This immersive 15-minute intervention is repeated over two consecutive days. In parallel to this intervention group is a control group. Control participants listen to the same music through headphones only. This randomized, parallel-group, bi-centric clinical trial will include a total of 40 participants (20 in the intervention group and 20 in the control group) per center. The inclusion criteria include age (over 60), absence of acute pathologies or psycho-behavioral disorders, and the ability to understand and consent to the study.
The expected results of this study may reveal significant benefits for the mental health of geriatric patients, demonstrating the feasibility of this intervention. These findings could pave the way for therapeutic innovations in hospital settings, integrating music and virtual reality as complementary tools to improve patients’ quality of life and emotional well-being.