Virtual reality therapy in patients after trauma surgery: prospective clinical trial

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Postoperative pain is a common prob-lem. The use of non-drug treatments can reduce the need for medications. The use of Virtual Reality Therapy (VR-ther-apy) is being widely studied as a complementary treatment for acute and chronic pain. The lack of data on the effectiveness of the technique in patients after traumatological surgical interventions became the basis for this study. OBJECTIVE: To determine the effectiveness of VR-therapy as a method of additional treatment of postoperative pain in patients after traumatological surgical interventions. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A prospective clinical study included 70 patients admitted for elective trauma surgery. VR-therapy in combination with medicated analgesics was used in 35 pa-tients. The control group included 35 patients who, after per-forming similar surgical interventions, were given pain relief only with medication. Virtual reality therapy was performed using an Oculus Quest 2 device. Sessions of 25 minutes were performed 3, 7, 12 hours after the operation. The effectiveness of pain therapy was assessed using a numerical rating scale. The response of the endocrine-metabolic response to pain was assessed by changes in the concentration of cortisol and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH). RESULTS: Therapy based on drug analgesia in combination with virtual reality sessions led to a better quality of pain relief for patients after trauma surgery. After a session of VR, the decrease in scores on the pain self-assessment scale was 44 %. When compared with the results obtained the next day, the values in the main group were lower by 22 %. The need of patients of the main group for narcotic analgesics significantly decreased. The change in the concentration of ACTH, as an indicator of the endocrine-metabolic response, in the group with VR-therapy was 18 % less pronounced. CONCLUSIONS: The use of VR leads to a decrease in postoperative pain, endocrine-metabolic response and the need for opioid analgesics.