Brief informational and experiential interventions improve virtual reality acceptance in rural older adults

Virtual reality (VR) offers a promising solution to deliver portable, engaging rehabilitation services, yet its adoption among older adults may be hindered by technological unfamiliarity or visually induced motion sickness. We examined whether a brief intervention – either an informational handout or an immersive VR experience – could improve attitudes towards VR technology in healthy rural older adults. Sixty-four rural adults aged 60 and older received either an informational handout describing VR or completed four immersive VR activities. Attitudes and motion sickness were assessed using pre-post intervention surveys. Results showed that the VR experience did not increase reported motion sickness and that both interventions significantly improved attitudes towards VR. These findings suggest that even low-resource, brief interventions can enhance technology acceptance in rural older adults. VR appears to be a well-tolerated and accessible option for rehabilitation in rural populations, though further research is needed to assess its effectiveness in clinical settings.