Virtual Reality and the Rehabilitation of Executive Functions: An Annotated Bibliography

The purpose of this paper is to present an annotated bibliography and summary of selected studies that used virtual reality (VR) technology for the assessment and/or rehabilitation of executive functions (EF). Executive functions are defined as higher-level cognitive abilities that are needed to perform complex or novel daily tasks. The recommended way of assessing and treating executive function deficits is by using complex functional tasks. To date, due to both time and economic constraints, clinicians have limited opportunities to observe patients performing complex daily tasks, such as shopping in a supermarket. A possible way to overcome these limitations is to use VR technology. The studies described in this paper illustrate the application of various functional virtual environments, created and presented via a variety of VR equipment, including desktop based and video capture platforms. These are used for the rehabilitation of a range of components of EF such as planning and dual tasking. The number of studies is small and the strength of the results is still limited, due mainly to the limited number of participants tested. Nevertheless, the results point to the ecological validity of the virtual environments and to the potential of using this technology for rehabilitation of executive functions in clinical