Improving the Treatment of Anorexia Nervosa in Children Through Virtual Reality Body Exposure

Summary

The age of onset of anorexia nervosa has been progressively decreasing in recent years. Also, the prevalence rates of childhood anorexia in many countries have grown significantly. This increase was already observed before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the confinements and the stress derived from them have caused this increase to accelerate. As in adolescent and adult patients, in childhood anorexia some of the core signs and symptoms are an extreme fear of gaining weight and avoidance of food. The consequences of the early-onset of anorexia can be very important since the maturation of the organism is more incomplete in children than in adolescents. Weight loss can have very severe consequences, since in children the percentage of body fat is lower. On the other hand, hormonal disorders derived from food deprivation also have very severe consequences for the development of different organs. General physical development and growth can be affected, with consequences such as not being able to reach normal height. The research carried out to date on the efficacy of treatments for childhood anorexia is very scarce. There are no specific treatment strategies or settings for children with anorexia, and little research has been done to tailor treatment for younger patients. Given the need to explore new treatments for anorexia nervosa specifically aimed at children, the objective of this project is to develop a program to carry out exposure to one's own body through virtual reality, gradually, with progressive increases in size until achieving a healthy weight. In the virtual exposure, patients will observe the image of an avatar in a mirror for the time necessary in each session to produce the reduction of the anxiety response. The avatars that will be developed for this purpose will have a physical constitution corresponding to children under 14 years of age, and physical proportions equivalent to those of each patient. The positive results obtained with a previous version of this treatment originally developed for adolescents and adults suggest that its adaptation to children can open new ways for exploring effective treatments for childhood anorexia.

Conditions

• Anorexia Nervosa

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Attentional Bias Modification Training

Combine usual cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) sessions with additional five VR-based body-exposure therapy sessions and five sessions of Attentional Bias Modification Training.

BEHAVIORAL

VR-based body exposure

Combine usual cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) sessions with additional five VR-based body-exposure therapy sessions

BEHAVIORAL

Cognitive-behavioral therapy

Usual cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) sessions.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Hospital Sant Joan de Deu

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Barcelona

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• José Gutiérrez-Maldonado · University of Barcelona

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Max Age

14 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2024-07-01

Primary Completion

2026-12-30

Completion

2026-12-30

Countries

• Spain

Study Locations