THE ARISING · Longevity & Healthspan
In Hospital, Standard Exercise Beat Virtual Reality Exercise for Physical Function in Over-75s
A hospital stay can leave an older person weaker than when they arrived, and a new trial asked whether exercise on the ward, with or without virtual reality, can change that.
The study is a randomized controlled trial, the strongest design for testing an intervention. It was published in 2026 in the journal Age and Ageing. It enrolled 156 patients aged 75 or older in an acute geriatric ward. Their mean age was 86.4 years.
Patients were randomly assigned to one of three groups. One group did a multicomponent exercise program, which combines several types of exercise. A second group did the same program with immersive virtual reality added. The third group got usual care.
The main outcome was physical function, measured with the Short Physical Performance Battery. This is a standard test that scores performance on a set of physical tasks. Compared with usual care, the conventional exercise group scored 1.04 points higher (95% confidence interval 0.33 to 1.75). The virtual reality group scored 0.13 points higher, a gap small enough that it could be chance (interval −0.64 to 0.89).
Head to head, the virtual reality version did worse than the conventional program by 0.91 points (interval −1.67 to −0.16). The authors conclude that conventional exercise remains the most effective option for improving physical function.
Cognition told a different story. Both exercise groups did better than usual care on cognitive function. The virtual reality group gained 1.90 points (interval 0.76 to 3.04) and the conventional group gained 1.23 points (interval 0.18 to 2.28). The difference between the two exercise groups was 0.67 points, which was not statistically significant (interval −0.46 to 1.80). The data cannot say that virtual reality was better for the mind. The authors say further studies are needed to confirm any cognitive benefit.
The study also reports that adherence was high and that no serious adverse events were related to virtual reality. Secondary outcomes included walking speed on the Timed Up and Go test, daily living ability, quality of life and muscle strength. The study gives results only for the physical and cognitive measures above.
For families, the practical question is what an older relative's hospital stay includes besides bed rest. This trial did not test what relatives should request, and it does not say whether wards can offer such programs. It does show that, in very old patients on one geriatric ward, a structured exercise program produced better physical test scores than usual care, and that adding virtual reality did not add to them.
The next thing to watch is whether larger studies confirm the possible cognitive benefit of virtual reality, and whether the physical gains hold up after patients leave hospital. Anyone considering exercise for a hospitalized relative should talk to the relative's own clinician before starting or stopping anything.