Research Recap with Skye: Virtual Reality and ADHD

Summary

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Hacking Your ADHD

Episode: Research Recap with Skye: Virtual Reality and ADHD

Host: William Curb
Guest: Skye Waterson
Date: June 19, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode of the "Research Recap" series, host William Curb and guest Skye Waterson explore a systematic review paper on Virtual Reality (VR) interventions for ADHD. They break down the findings of this emerging field, discuss the types of VR interventions studied, examine the effectiveness and limitations, and reflect on their own VR experiences. The conversation aims to make the science accessible and consider practical applications for ADHD support.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Virtual Reality for ADHD?

• VR as a Clinical Tool:
  • The systematic review examines how VR is evolving from a "high-tech novelty to perhaps more of a legitimate clinical tool for managing ADHD" (William, 01:41).
  • VR’s immersive, attention-grabbing qualities make it an interesting candidate for ADHD interventions, especially as attention is a core struggle for those with the disorder (Skye, 02:57).

2. Types of VR Interventions Found in the Review (04:05)

Skye outlines the three categories of VR interventions evaluated:

• Interactive Game Training:
  • Cognitive tasks designed as games to boost attention, executive function, and problem solving, usually including reward systems.
• Exergaming/Body Motion Training:
  • Activities that combine physical movement with cognitive tasks; targets motor-cognitive integration and inhibitory control.
• Virtual Scenario Training:
  • Simulated real-life social or emotional scenarios to improve emotional regulation and social functioning.
    • "I could have used something like that as a child because I did not know what was going on." (Skye, 05:01)

3. Study Methodology & Scope (05:41)

• Wide Range of Studies:
  • The review included 22 studies in total: 11 randomized controlled trials, 8 quasi-experimental studies, and 3 open-label studies (William & Skye, 05:57-06:13).
  • These studies spanned multiple countries: South Korea, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, China, Portugal, Spain, Iran, Israel, and France.
• Multimodal Approach:
  • VR was not intended as a replacement for medication or therapy, but as "part of the toolbox," often with better results when combined with other treatments (William & Skye, 06:30-07:29).

4. Effectiveness and Adherence (07:29)

• Novelty and Engagement:
  • VR offers a "very novel" intervention, which keeps interest high, especially for children who otherwise might not engage with traditional therapies.
    • "This could be a very good intervention to be, 'Oh, I want to go and do this.' Not a 'I have to go and do this.'" (William, 07:44)
• Low Drop-off and High Satisfaction:
  • Drop-off (attrition) rates were impressively low (often 85%+ adherence).
  • "Having this as... one part of your treatment. If that's keeping you involved in doing your treatment in general, that's a huge boon." (William, 08:50)
• Participant Experience:
  • "Participants in the VR groups generally reported higher satisfaction... people enjoyed this one. They enjoyed the VR." (Skye, 10:42)

5. Nature and Limits of the Results

• Positive Outcomes:
  • Improvements in attention, working memory, and social-emotional functioning when paired with other treatments; sometimes even superior to pharmacological alone in one study (Skye, 09:30).
• Caveats:
  • Limited evidence for "far transfer" (i.e., skills gained in VR leading to improvement in real-life, like classroom behavior) (William, 05:06).
  • Lack of data on comorbidities despite ADHD often co-occurring with other conditions.
  • Long-term effects are still unknown due to a lack of longitudinal data.

6. Personal Reflections on VR (11:18)

• Experience Stories:
  • Skye and William share their own experiences:
    • "We bought a VR and we used it up until our kids became toddlers, because it's not the best when you've got kids running around onto your feet." (Skye, 11:24)
    • "Anything where I moved, I immediately got incredibly motion sick." (William, 11:55)
• Potential & Side Effects:
  • The immersive, "mindful" nature of VR—being completely cut off from distractions—could be especially beneficial for focus (Skye, 12:17).
  • Side effects listed: head heaviness from the device, mild dizziness, increased dream activity, and simulator sickness (Skye, 13:25).

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• "ADHD is about attention. Being in a 360-degree environment is pretty attention-grabbing. It’s hard to lose attention at that point."
  — Skye, 02:57
• "I think pretty much everything that could be positive was positive in terms of the results."
  — Skye, 09:30
• "While this ... has promising results, they're like, yeah, you often get better results when you combine this with more than one therapy."
  — William, 06:39
• "The only people who benefit from the interventions are the people who stay in the interventions. And often you'll see in other papers they'll be like. And then the ADHD group all dropped out."
  — Skye, 08:03
• "There was something almost mindful about being in [VR]. I couldn't see my phone."
  — Skye, 12:36

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:08 – Introduction to the episode and guests
• 02:05-05:06 – Breakdown of the systematic review and VR intervention types
• 05:35-06:13 – Overview of the studies included, methodology, and international scope
• 06:30-07:29 – Discussion on multimodal (combined) treatments
• 07:29-08:24 – Novelty, engagement, and adherence rates
• 09:06-10:42 – Summary of findings and participant satisfaction
• 11:18-13:48 – Personal VR experiences and discussion of side effects

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Final Thoughts and Takeaways

• VR for ADHD is a new but promising field, particularly as an engaging adjunct to treatment—not a stand-alone cure.
• Studies indicate improvements in cognitive and behavioral outcomes and very high participant satisfaction and adherence.
• Limitations exist—especially regarding lasting real-life impacts, diversity of participants, and potential side effects.
• Future Applications: The hosts speculate on AR and the role of immersion in focus and attention, suggesting the technology’s evolution may continue to bring new treatment opportunities.

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Listener Engagement

• The featured paper was submitted by a listener. Listeners are encouraged to send in studies for future discussion (William, 13:53).

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Summary prepared for listeners looking for a concise, deep dive of the episode’s principal themes, findings, memorable moments, and practical implications.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Welcome to Hacking youg adhd. I'm your host William Kerb and I have adhd. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Today I'm joined by Sky Waterson for our Research Recap series. In this series, we take a look at a single research paper and dive into what the paper says, how it was conducted, and try and find any practical takeaways. In this episode we're going to be discussing a paper called Virtual Reality Interventions for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. A systematic review. And this paper is actually a review that provides a comprehensive look at how virtual reality is transitioning from a high tech novelty to perhaps more of a legitimate clinical tool from managing adhd. Also as a note, this was a listener submitted paper and definitely something I would have never thought to look into on my own. So I was really excited to get this submission because I had no idea that this was something people were doing.

[C]

Yeah, very, very cool.

[B]

Well, let's get into it.

[C]

Awesome. So this paper is a systematic review. It's called Virtual Reality Interventions for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. And yeah, it was based in China, which was very interesting. Was it a pre press or in press at the time? I think the copy we've gotten is not connected to a particular journal that I can see.

[B]

Yeah, I think it was pre, but it's what they did do. A lot of the things they did like a Prisma.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And they connected through all like the major databases and stuff. So I don't know if it was connected to anything. So yeah, probably pre press. But it is a very interesting idea because I did not realize that there were papers discussing this already because it is not particularly an avenue I thought was a good use for ADHD interventions.

[C]

Yeah, it's an interesting one. I mean in some ways it makes sense. ADHD is about attention. Being in a 360 degree environment is pretty attention grabbing. It's hard to lose attention at that point. So it makes sense. But it is interesting because I don't know if virtual reality is really, I guess something that is widely used on a daily basis by lots of people yet.

[B]

No. And this does come. We meta has just like announced that they're like, yeah, downgrading all of their virtual reality stuff so we'll see how this ends up going because they were the biggest investor in it recently. But yeah, I was really interested too also looking at like what you actually would do in a VR thing to work on this. And so I was like, okay, so things like going into this 3D environment and then having these like tracking targets and stuff to like help with response inhibition and doing like memory based matching type of things. It's like, I mean I still don't have a good, I mean I probably need to find like a video of this to like actually get the sense of it.

[C]

Yeah, well they had three, three categories which they were kind of looking at. So they had VR interactive game training. So that was the cognitive task to enhance attention, executive function and problem solving with reward mechanisms. So you can imagine, you know, you get a reward. It's like kind of like a game in that way. Then they had the ever gaming or sorry, VR exergaming body motion training. So that was combining physical movement and cognitive training. It was to target specifically motor cognitive integrate integration, inhibitory control and coordination. So it's kind of a new fun way to do the stop go tasks that people are always doing. And then they had the VR virtual scenario training which I thought was particularly interesting and maybe particularly relevant for this, which was simulating real life scenarios to improve emotional regulations and social functioning. And quite frankly I could have used something like that as a child because I did not know what was going on.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And it was. They were also like very much looking at this like near transfer versus far transfer of skills where a lot of times we want to look as like, okay, is this just going to be improving in the lab versus Is this going to be improving when we're not in the lab? Yeah, And I will say they did find it in the lab. We have great improvement. They have not had as much good data about that far transfer yet.

[C]

Yeah. Doing a longitudinal study, a really long longitudinal study is hard to do, which.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely.

[C]

So they looked, they went through the different papers. I don't remember how many papers they had in total. They had a whole bunch of different kinds. So they had 11 randomized control trial papers. They had.

[B]

MC says they had 22 studies total.

[C]

Yes, I think. Yes, sorry. Yeah, you're right. 22 studies and 11 randomized controlled trial studies within that.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So then eight quasi experimental and three that were like kind of more open.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And this label kind of thing.

[C]

And the studies were actually, some of them were conducted in South Korea, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and China, as well as Portugal, Spain, Iran, Israel and France. So it was quite well distributed in terms of cultures where these studies were coming from.

[B]

Yeah. And two of the things I appreciate too about this, they were talking about this more as a. In the multimodal sense where we're not using this to replace any particular treatment. It's being like, this is going to. You're going to do this with medication or with some other therapy or something. Because while this works or this is. Has promising results, I should say doesn't work, is that. I don't want to overstate, but it has promising results. They're like, yeah, you often get better results when you combine this with more than one therapy.

[C]

Yeah, 100%. And it's, it's interesting. It felt like they, whoever was writing this paper were particularly interested in figuring out how to get it to help people with adhd, which is not always the case. Some papers are more just observational. They're just trying to get the information. Information. This paper was like very much about. Yeah. They're like, oh, we'll use all the tools in the toolbox. Why wouldn't we? And it was very refreshing.

[B]

Yeah. And VR does have this like, advantage of. It's very novel. So it does have this. It's especially for like kids that might not want to be doing traditional therapies. This could be a very good intervention to be. Oh, I want to go and do this. Not a. I have to go and do this. Yes.

[C]

And you could see that in the drop off rates. Like the drop off rates were pretty low, which was very helpful because one of the biggest problems we have is that the only people who benefit from the interventions Are the people who stay in the interventions. And often you'll see in other papers they'll be like. And then the ADHD group all dropped out.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. And so I think. Yeah. Because we had what a. The adherence rates were like often like 85% or higher, which is just like unheard of for most studies.

[C]

Yeah. Like sometimes, especially if it's a longer study, the adherence rate can be like 50%. And then you're sort of left wondering, well, did the people who stay just have an unusual ability to manage their know? Because we're looking at perseverance and ability to focus and all of the things. And you're almost like losing the people who drop out to be able to even do this particular study.

[B]

Yeah. So, yeah. Having this as a, especially in a. The idea of like, we're going to do this as a multimodal. So this is just one part of your treatment. If that's keeping you involved in doing your treatment in general, that's a huge boon.

[C]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So overall the findings were really, really positive.

[B]

Yeah. Which again, was very surprised. Why? Because again, this was a listener submitted study. I had not heard anything about VR in this field before, so I was really interested in that. Oh, this is happening and it's just not loud.

[C]

They found that it was really helpful with attention. It was working memory. They. They found it was good when it was added to things as well. There was lots of. I think pretty much everything that could be positive was positive in terms of the results. You know, it was, it was. There was one study and this is at. Not at all. I'm not going to say this means anything. But one study also reported superior memory improvement compared to the pharmacological treatment group, which for them was just a like. And now imagine if we did both situation.

[B]

Yeah. So do you want to include some of the caveats that we should like, we did talk a little bit about the near and far transfer rates and that. Yeah, we don't, we don't know have any data that says that this is great for in the classroom versus it just in the clinic and that a lot of the papers didn't include comorbidities or anything. So while it is nice to have a very strict like, hey, this is ADHD only we all know that ADHD comes with friends and so it's a cloud. Can be hard if you don't have that full experience there.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. And kind of to our point around attrition rates, they also found that participants in the VR groups generally reported higher Satisfaction. And I think that's worth mentioning because I feel like a lot of times adherence and compliance and ability to continue to do things is important. And also, we have a life and we want to live it, and we want it to be good. And managing your ADHD can often feel difficult and complicated and sometimes impossible. And so it was nice to hear that people enjoyed this one. They enjoyed the VR.

[B]

Yeah. And just slightly off topic question here. Have you ever done any VR stuff in general?

[C]

Yes. So one of the things that when VR first came out, we went to those VR, like, gaming spaces and did it, and then we bought a VR and we used it up until our kids became toddlers, because it's not the best when you've got kids running around onto your feet.

[B]

Yeah. You really. It's. You don't know your surroundings very quickly.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. It's very. Nothing knocks you out of your thing. Like being like, oh, a toddler just ran past me.

[B]

Yeah. I was gonna say, because, yeah, I have some experience, but anything where I moved, I immediately got incredibly motion sick.

[C]

Oh, no. Really?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So I could do, like, beat Saber or something and be like, okay, I'm standing still and doing stuff. This works great. And then be like, okay, this game, you gonna just move you forward a little bit. I'm like, oh, no.

[C]

Yeah, I. I mostly did the standing still stuff. I beat Saber was my favorite as well. I know some people who, like, like, try saw videos of people living in VR. I do feel like. And this is a bit off topic, but, you know, at the time, it was such a big thing. Everyone was talking about it. I think now ar, real and virtual reality are probably going to be the next, like, the. The move, which is maybe less helpful for ADHD because it's less focused. There was something almost mindful about being in. I couldn't see my phone.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I. I could see with AR having that the augmented reality, where you have, like, layer over being, like, something to, like, kind of be like, hey, your eyes are no longer where you wanted them to be.

[C]

That is true.

[B]

And, like, giving, like, a correction into the right direction. Like, you were having just, like, little. I wouldn't want it to be a lot, but you'd be like, oh, like a little vibration. When I'm like, oh, I looked over there and.

[C]

But not a lot. Like, we don't want to start, you know, monitoring people or anything like that.

[B]

Yeah. I don't need, like, a shock bracelet going off. Like, you need to pay attention.

[C]

Yeah. Especially because brain breaks Brain breaks are important. But it was interesting. I mean they did mention some of the side effects that you mentioned. So a few they were very like but it's no big deal. And I was like but it is to the people who had it. They had heaviness in the head because of the head mounted device, mild dizziness. They said more dream activity, which wild that they wanted to know about that.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And then simulator sickness as well. So a couple of people.

[B]

Well I just want to mention one more time that this was a listener submitted paper and if you have a paper that you think we should talk about, please send it in. We would love to do more of these.

[C]

Hello everyone. If you have enjoyed listening to this episode then you might like to listen to my podcast, the ADHD Skills Lab where we go and deep dive into more of the research. And also we focus on ADHD support for business owners. Whether you're aspiring or you have your own company. And if you have your own company and you wish that you had somebody who would just build these systems for you so you could stop figuring out what to do all the time, well that's what we do. We are mentor and operator together. So if you want to learn a little bit more about that, you can find me at Unconventional Organization. Thanks for listening.

[A]

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[C]

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[A]

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[C]

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