ISC 2026 | Virtual and augmented reality for cognitive and behavioral recovery after stroke
Gisele Sampaio Silva, MD, PhD, Federal University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, discusses the potential of virtual and augmented reality in addressing cognitive impairment after stroke. Dr Sampaio Silva highlights the promising evidence that suggests these technologies can stimulate both motor and executive functions simultaneously. This interview took place at the 2026 International Stroke Congress (ISC), held in New Orleans, LA.
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Transcript
Well, cognitive impairment after stroke is a real important problem. So up to two-thirds of patients after ischemic stroke can have cognitive impairment. And unfortunately, we don’t have very good treatments for cognitive impairment after stroke. So right now we have the ability to try to use virtual and augmented reality to try to help those patients. Unfortunately, we don’t have, you know, much data in the literature, so we still have to build the evidence for that...
Well, cognitive impairment after stroke is a real important problem. So up to two-thirds of patients after ischemic stroke can have cognitive impairment. And unfortunately, we don’t have very good treatments for cognitive impairment after stroke. So right now we have the ability to try to use virtual and augmented reality to try to help those patients. Unfortunately, we don’t have, you know, much data in the literature, so we still have to build the evidence for that. But the evidence that you have is really, really exciting because it seems that whenever you are, you know, stimulating the motor part of the patient, if we use virtual and augmented reality, you can do both at the same time. You can stimulate the motor part. And by dual tasking, you can stimulate the executive function of the patient as well. And another very important advantage of using virtual reality is that it increases adherence so for the patient it’s something fun to do you can have your family doing it with you instead of waiting you know in a rehab home room alone and feeling that you are a sick person so I guess that we have a lot of advantages of using it we have to build the evidence to start using it. And it’s coming. I think that in the future, we are going to be using this a lot to improve not only motor recovery after stroke, but also for executive function and for cognitive impairment after stroke as well.
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