Virtual Reality Distraction to Help Control Acute Pain during Medical Procedures

Abstract

Uncontrolled pain is a widespread problem in medicine. Both military and civilian advisory committees have called for large improvements in pain control. The treatment of severely burn-injured patients is one of the most intensely painful processes in medicine. In order to prevent infection and promote healing, patients with severe burns typically must have their bandages removed, and have their wounds cleaned daily for weeks or even months. Interdisciplinary research teams are exploring ways to use emerging computer technologies to help address this important medical problem of how to better control acute procedural pain. Immersive virtual reality (VR) visually isolates patients from the "real world." What is going on in people's brains when they feel pain, and how are those patterns of brain activity altered when participants go into immersive virtual reality and experience large reductions in how much pain they feel? To explore these topics, Hoffman and colleagues measured the objective physiological neural correlates of VR analgesia. Laboratory studies suggest that participants who show only modest VR analgesia using a less immersive VR system are likely to show larger reductions in pain if a more immersive VR system is used. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)