Virtual reality for cognitive and neuropsychiatric outcomes in mild cognitive impairment and dementia: a network meta-analysis

Virtual reality may improve cognition and neuropsychiatric symptoms in mild cognitive impairment and dementia, but the comparative effects of different intervention strategies remain unclear. We conducted a systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials identified from nine databases from inception to August 6, 2025. Thirty-six trials involving 2,048 adults with mild cognitive impairment or dementia were included.

Interventions lasted 4–24 weeks, with sessions of 18–100 min. Challenge-based semi-immersive virtual reality ranked highest for global cognitive function (SUCRA 80.9%), followed by problem-solving fully immersive virtual reality (SUCRA 70.6%). Challenge-based fully immersive virtual reality ranked highest for executive function (SUCRA 75.7%) and memory (SUCRA 76.4%).

Network meta-regression identified no significant moderation by participant or intervention characteristics. Virtual reality, particularly challenge-based semi-immersive and fully immersive approaches, may offer cognitive benefits, although methodological heterogeneity and risk of bias limit certainty. No funding was received for this research.

School of Nursing, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, People’s Republic of China Yiang Wang, Yanan Huang & Doris Sau Fung Yu The authors declare no competing interests. Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material.

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To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Wang, Y., Huang, Y. & Yu, D.S.F. Virtual reality for cognitive and neuropsychiatric outcomes in mild cognitive impairment and dementia: a network meta-analysis. npj Digit.