How virtual reality can reduce chronic and acute pain. Treat mental diseases and support the training of medical professionals.
Can virtual reality replace some medicine in the future?
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| Digital transformation in medical health |
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| Virtual reality helps in health care |
Virtual reality allows people to travel and change places without moving when you put on VR headsets, you literally another world. VR alters our perception of reality modifies the way we think and feel. It simulates our vision, hijacks the brain and create a sense of psychological presence. It teleports people outside their own body. Suddenly you can find your self swimming with dolphin, relaxing on a beach, travelling in space or watching nature.
Many scientists have studied our sense self.
How the body and brain are connected.
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| Body and brain conectivity |
Another the panthon body illusion study by Henrik pehrsson confirmed the so called out of body experiment.
The experience i which the person sees his or her own body from outside the physical body.
A subjects wears goggles showing a view from a camera behind him. An experimenter prods the subject's chest at the same time as prodding at the camera the subject sees the hand prodding toward the camera as he feels his chest being prodded. This creat a vivid sense that his real body is floating behind the one he sees. The out of body experiment shows the impact of psychological factors on how we perceive reality.
A similar mechanism can be observed when we get sick. Two patients with the same disease might experience vastly different symptoms.
In 1977, George Engel a professor psychiatry and medicine at the university of Rochester, propose that doctors should not only pay attention to a mechanistic interpretation of disease, but also the emotional aspects of illness.
This theory has later opened the doors to VR a viable therapeutic intervention. Scientists start to explore the power of VR in medicine.
VR can help treat people with depression and anxiety reduce the intensity of pain.
How can VR reduce pain?
.jpeg "Using vr in healthcare") |
| Virtual reality use in pain reducing |
First,
It can distracts the brain from noxious signals raising up from the body.
Second,
Second,
It create an illusion of time acceleration, effectively shortening the length of pain episode.
Third,
Third,
If nip signals in the bud of their origin blocking pain from reaching the brain.
The combination of three effects supports the ability of immersion to fight pain.
But VR is not always a cure for part of a patients in distress or with an advanced illness is an unwelcome intrusion.
It is important not our promise what technology can achieve in medicine every drug and medical procedure has risk
It also the case in VR even if it is very safe compared to just about any other medical treatment. If VR is a cure we also need a VR pharmacy with shelves full of VR treatment options. That are safe effective and personlisable for each individual patient. For example customized VR treatments for pain could include different distance environment and sounds before prescribing a specific option. Doctors would analyze patient preference and test its effectiveness. That's possible in the future.
What are the three VR applications that can have the most significant impact an standard of care?
Pain is the most obvious place because pain is so pervasive and burdensome and impacts quality of life so substantially and cost so much money that is probably the largest impact VR can have pain is divided into acute pain and chronic pain so technically this might be two different use causes but for now I'll keep it as one and there's extensive evidence that VR can help especially with acute pain for example somebody coming out of the separating room who's in pain before we start using a lot of optional medications which could lead to dependency. The others areas really focus on mental health anxiety is an area that is also extremely pervasive often concurrent and comorbid with pain or a number of companies start up companies that are developing and have really come very far along their development pathway for anxiety based VR treatments and these could be delivered to peoples home and self administrated in many cases without requiring clinician to right there so this is another really exciting opportunity you know VR also has incredible opportunity for learning and simulation in healthcare for clinicians who need to learn procedures or learn operations or even learn how to engage with patient in just a conversation all of that can be simulated.
How would you convince skeptics that VR is not a place or just gaming technology but an effective drug?
This whole idea idea that we just treat the body with drugs and the brain talk therapy is kind of old idea it's a modern neuroscience recognizes that two side are one the body is an extra coronial extension of the brain VR is essentially a mind body intervention that's evidence based and not unlike other treatments that have been around for years for decades for hundred of years but that it just standardized the experience.
Is it gaming no in some causes it's gaming and by the way games have therapeutic benefits and there's nothing wrong with that but usually we're not talking about games we're talking about building skills cognitive behavioral therapy biofeedback therapy or think about in schizophrenia where we use a virtual reality trial log therapy to help patients to manage their hallucinations.
How do patient react when they try VR therapy for the first time ?
We typically see not of two moments the 1st is the moment of cognitive immersion or may be conscious immersion where you realize that you are in a three dimensional space thus psychological concepts called presence takes over a this is where the brain and feels the body feels like it is actually present in this environment so that's the first point where you become immersed cognitively and you will see people smile or say oh my God, wow. The brain has finally kind of gotten used to environment and now you see them often take a big deep breath and just sort of relax into the bed and we can see sometimes their heart rate slow down or even the blood pressure drop and this is the point where the autonomous nervous system is taking over and is relaxing into the experience and that's generally what we're trying to achieve in the acute setting is not just the conscious immersion but the physiological immersion so people feel like mind and body have relaxed into the experience sounds like a matrix in a way it is in the 1999 science fiction movie morphens tells us that " It real is what you can feel, small taste and see then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain" The full capabilities of the mind are still unexplored.
We are at the beginning of discovering the possibilities of VR in medicine many companies and start-ups are working on novel solutions that can for example.
• Strengthen the doctors patient relationships
• Improve compliance and patient engagements
• Prepare terminal ill patients for death
The combination of three effects supports the ability of immersion to fight pain.
But VR is not always a cure for part of a patients in distress or with an advanced illness is an unwelcome intrusion.
It is important not our promise what technology can achieve in medicine every drug and medical procedure has risk
It also the case in VR even if it is very safe compared to just about any other medical treatment. If VR is a cure we also need a VR pharmacy with shelves full of VR treatment options. That are safe effective and personlisable for each individual patient. For example customized VR treatments for pain could include different distance environment and sounds before prescribing a specific option. Doctors would analyze patient preference and test its effectiveness. That's possible in the future.
What are the three VR applications that can have the most significant impact an standard of care?
Pain is the most obvious place because pain is so pervasive and burdensome and impacts quality of life so substantially and cost so much money that is probably the largest impact VR can have pain is divided into acute pain and chronic pain so technically this might be two different use causes but for now I'll keep it as one and there's extensive evidence that VR can help especially with acute pain for example somebody coming out of the separating room who's in pain before we start using a lot of optional medications which could lead to dependency. The others areas really focus on mental health anxiety is an area that is also extremely pervasive often concurrent and comorbid with pain or a number of companies start up companies that are developing and have really come very far along their development pathway for anxiety based VR treatments and these could be delivered to peoples home and self administrated in many cases without requiring clinician to right there so this is another really exciting opportunity you know VR also has incredible opportunity for learning and simulation in healthcare for clinicians who need to learn procedures or learn operations or even learn how to engage with patient in just a conversation all of that can be simulated.
How would you convince skeptics that VR is not a place or just gaming technology but an effective drug?
This whole idea idea that we just treat the body with drugs and the brain talk therapy is kind of old idea it's a modern neuroscience recognizes that two side are one the body is an extra coronial extension of the brain VR is essentially a mind body intervention that's evidence based and not unlike other treatments that have been around for years for decades for hundred of years but that it just standardized the experience.
Is it gaming no in some causes it's gaming and by the way games have therapeutic benefits and there's nothing wrong with that but usually we're not talking about games we're talking about building skills cognitive behavioral therapy biofeedback therapy or think about in schizophrenia where we use a virtual reality trial log therapy to help patients to manage their hallucinations.
How do patient react when they try VR therapy for the first time ?
We typically see not of two moments the 1st is the moment of cognitive immersion or may be conscious immersion where you realize that you are in a three dimensional space thus psychological concepts called presence takes over a this is where the brain and feels the body feels like it is actually present in this environment so that's the first point where you become immersed cognitively and you will see people smile or say oh my God, wow. The brain has finally kind of gotten used to environment and now you see them often take a big deep breath and just sort of relax into the bed and we can see sometimes their heart rate slow down or even the blood pressure drop and this is the point where the autonomous nervous system is taking over and is relaxing into the experience and that's generally what we're trying to achieve in the acute setting is not just the conscious immersion but the physiological immersion so people feel like mind and body have relaxed into the experience sounds like a matrix in a way it is in the 1999 science fiction movie morphens tells us that " It real is what you can feel, small taste and see then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain" The full capabilities of the mind are still unexplored.
We are at the beginning of discovering the possibilities of VR in medicine many companies and start-ups are working on novel solutions that can for example.
• Strengthen the doctors patient relationships
• Improve compliance and patient engagements
• Prepare terminal ill patients for death
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| Little girl fighting with death |
New technologies use biofeed back to enhance the effectiveness of dvr experiences vr machines will become real in a few years .
Science and technology are not a barrier anymore we lack staffing with digital literacy, infrastructure, and funding.
we need vision and a new mindset in healthcare.
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