Play virtual reality games or relax in a virtual environment nature could help relieve chronic pain, particularly when symptoms are severe they suggest a new experiment.
A study was conducted with 120 hospitalized patients in the study had rated their pain as less 3 out of 10 in the last 24 hours. Half of the patients were chosen chance to use screens with virtual reality 3 times a day for the next 48 hours, the other half served as a control group and told them to see health programs and wellness on TV in their rooms They are including guided relaxations, poetry readings and debates on health issues.
Virtual reality (VR), patients gave information an average decrease in pain scores 1.72 points compared to an average decrease of 0.46 points for the control group.
It was found that virtual reality helped reduce pain in many types of pain: gastrointestinal, cancer, orthopedic, neurological, and reduced pain more people with the most severe pain, said Dr. Brennam Spiegel, professor of medicine public health and health System Cedars-Sinai and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Pain ratings 0 represented no pain and no scores 10 represented the worst pain.
Among people who rated their pain at least 7 of the 10, average reductions in pain score 3.04 points VR compared to 0.93 in the control group.
While the experiment was not designed to test how virtual reality helps relieve pain, can work in several ways, Spiegel said.
Creates an illusion of acceleration time, effectively shortening the duration of pain episodes, Spiegel said. And short signals in the outbreak at its source, preventing the pain reaches the brain.
Today, the virtual reality devices mass produced may require no more than a smartphone and special headphones to run, and an increasing number of people use these devices to play games and take tours dimensional realistic sites that maybe not they can visit in real life.
The objective of the use of virtual reality as a tool to control pain is to reduce the use of opioid analgesics addictive, says the study team PLOS ONE. However, there were no significant differences in the use of opioids between the VR group and the control group in the study.
