A survey shows that VR is to some extent as good as narcotics in reducing human suffering.
Maybe in the near future, your doctor will give you some VR games instead of giving you some medicine to reduce your pain.
Well, this is just the vision of Matthew Stoudt. He is the CEO of Applied VR and is dedicated to reducing people's pain and anxiety in the medical process through VR. The company worked with a number of hospitals to allow patients to use the Samsung Gear VR headset to use this technology and to study the effect.
So far, the company has developed three different VR "pain relief" programs that can also be used to relieve anxiety, and it has also added some third-party content. The heads of the Applied VR platform are used in hospitals, doctors' offices, and clinics that involve blood collection, epidural anesthesia, and postoperative pain management.
VR has long been exploited for its potential to ease the pain of users, making it a distracting tool in medical procedures, such as wound care for burn patients. However, it has always been very expensive to bring a virtual reality device into a hospital (or any other relevant place). Hunter Hoffman, director of the Virtual Reality Research Center at the University of Washington's Human Photonics Laboratory and developer of the pain control game (SnowWorld), said that part of the research cost of using a VR device for pain relief in intensive care units is $35,000.
Of course, they can use cheaper heads, such as the Samsung Gear VR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive on the market. It would be much easier if hospitals or doctors consider using this equipment for their patients.
In fact, many entrepreneurs, including AppliedVR, have seen business opportunities. AppliedVR's sales service - VR content plus Gear VR heads - customers pay a Gear VR plus a compatible Samsung high-end smartphone for far more than $100, but this is still far less than the cost of virtual reality devices in the past The cost; it refuses to disclose the exact pricing.
AppliedVR is located at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center - an investor in the company. They also invested in Los Angeles Children's Hospital and are using their software to conduct research. In a study recently completed but not yet published by Cedars-Sinai, a group of 60 patients with different medical conditions were studied. These individuals suffered from pancreatitis abdominal pain or pneumonia-like chest pain. They used related content provided by AppliedVR, including the Bear Blast game, where the player needs to move his head to throw a ball at the cartoon bear.
"I have some games in my office. The game is simple and there seems to be a hypnotic function: The virtual world is full of bears and balls. You have to keep moving at a slow pace. You have to throw as many as you can to get corresponding Scores. Unlike most games, you don't get hurt or die."
Brennan Spiegel, who conducted research on health services at Cedars-Sinai, said that researchers found that the 20-minute experience with virtual reality software reduced pain on average by 24%. If measured on a scale of 0 to 10, the patient had a pain value of about 5.5 before using VR, and an average of 4 pain after using VR.
"This method of reducing acute pain is very interesting," he said. "This is not the same as what we see from narcotic drugs."
Spiegel also stated that the Cedars-Sinai Research Center is now conducting a controlled trial in which some patients can have virtual reality head-ups that can be used at any time during the hospital stay, while others do not.
Spiegel is cautious and optimistic about the prospects of virtual reality to help reduce patient discomfort. He believes that this technology is beneficial to people in pain, and at least to a certain extent can help them relax, whether in the hospital or after they return home. However, he also admits that this technology will not help everyone and must gather more data before ascertaining whether it is really useful.
Elliot Krane, who is the leader of pain management for children's health at Stanford University, also believes that VR's ability to distract patients is valuable. He said that physical therapy can be used to help children and allow them to stay in the imaging study. The biggest challenge for him now is to find software developers who want applications to solve specific medical problems.
Spiegel pointed out that it is equally important to identify when the technology is useful and when it will not be available. He remembered his experience of trying to convince a patient with a cancer spread to wear her head-mounted device and send her to virtual Iceland. The patient at that time looked at him as if looking at a madman. He said: "We are absolutely careful not to exaggerate VR technology or any other digital technology."