Speaker 1: In the future, managing pain may involve putting on a
Speaker 1: helmet and entering another world. I'm Jonathan Strickland and this
Speaker 1: is text up Daily. In the nineteen nineties, VR became
Speaker 1: a big tech buzzword that had a lot of hype
Speaker 1: behind it. From Hollywood to mainstream reporting. It seemed like
Speaker 1: everyone was convinced that we would soon be entering virtual
Speaker 1: realms for the most mundane computer transactions. Everything from games
Speaker 1: to shopping would be affected. Any experience you had in
Speaker 1: the real world could be and would be simulated and
Speaker 1: enhanced in the virtual one. But the technology of VR
Speaker 1: at the time was fairly primitive and incredibly expensive. The
Speaker 1: experience of using VR did not match up to the
Speaker 1: ones that people expected. Interest in the field began to wane,
Speaker 1: and soon VR pioneers found themselves struggling to make progress
Speaker 1: and to raise money needed for research and development. That
Speaker 1: didn't stop VR from evolving, however, and one the areas
Speaker 1: of research that showed promise was in medicine. Working with
Speaker 1: doctors of different disciplines, VR experts have found that virtual
Speaker 1: reality can be an effective method to treat certain conditions
Speaker 1: and pain itself. For example, doctors have seen great success
Speaker 1: when using virtual reality to help patients deal with anxiety
Speaker 1: or even phobias. Virtual reality exposure therapy has been used
Speaker 1: to reduce the impact phobias can have. VR gives people
Speaker 1: the chance to progress through cognitive behavioral therapy, identifying the
Speaker 1: thoughts that lead to negative feelings and finding ways to
Speaker 1: replace those thoughts with more positive ones. Doctors pair this
Speaker 1: within vivo exposure therapy. One interesting thing is that people
Speaker 1: can and do go through the same emotional reactions when
Speaker 1: they encounter a virtual representation of their fear as they
Speaker 1: would with the real thing. A person afraid of heights
Speaker 1: will feel his or her body react to being on
Speaker 1: a virtual skyscraper as it would in a real location.
Speaker 1: Because the patient knows they are in reality within a
Speaker 1: safe physical environment, they don't necessarily feel as much anxiety
Speaker 1: leading up to the therapy. This helps them cope with
Speaker 1: the experience and use various techniques to deal with their fears.
Speaker 1: The same is true with therapy designed to treat general anxiety.
Speaker 1: VR in many ways helps people explore techniques like meditation,
Speaker 1: which have been proven to work as a coping mechanism,
Speaker 1: but doctors rarely suggest meditation to patients. Largely because such
Speaker 1: advice often goes unheeded. VR can also be used to
Speaker 1: help deal with acute pain. Hunter Hoffman, a researcher at
Speaker 1: the University of Washington, has done a great deal of
Speaker 1: work exploring this use of VR. Some of that work
Speaker 1: includes helping to distract burn patients during wound care. Patients
Speaker 1: with burns must have their wounds cleaned frequently, a process
Speaker 1: as often accompanied by severe acute pain. Hoffman's work has
Speaker 1: found that when patients participate in an immersive virtual experience,
Speaker 1: they tend to register less pain than if they were
Speaker 1: to watch a meditative video or do nothing at all.
Speaker 1: Patients have reported experience as much as twenty five percent
Speaker 1: less pain than they would feel otherwise. This is tremendous news.
Speaker 1: If VR can be used to help treat people's pain,
Speaker 1: it can reduce their dependence upon powerful pain killers. In
Speaker 1: the United States, opioids, drugs that are similar to opium
Speaker 1: and that bind to one or more of the three
Speaker 1: opioid receptors of the body, are a big problem. Opioid
Speaker 1: use can be accompanied by a sense of euphoria as
Speaker 1: well as pain relief. This has led some people to
Speaker 1: misuse the drugs even following the directions of medical staff
Speaker 1: can lead to a dependence upon opioids. Misuse can also
Speaker 1: lead to overdoses, which can be fatal. Creating a new
Speaker 1: method to help manage pain could literally save lives. It's
Speaker 1: fair to point out, though, that while VR is a
Speaker 1: relatively new technology, the technique to reduce pain by giving
Speaker 1: the brain a different task to focus upon isn't new.
Speaker 1: Whether it is meditation or some other task, people have
Speaker 1: known for centuries that occupying the brain can cut down
Speaker 1: on the amount of pain we consciously experience. The hypothesis
Speaker 1: for what is going on goes like this, Pain is
Speaker 1: communicated through our nervous system. The pain signals come from
Speaker 1: our peripheral nervous system to our brains, which then register
Speaker 1: the signals and produce the sensation of pain. When we
Speaker 1: focus on another task or experience, we shut down some
Speaker 1: of those pathways that otherwise would allow pain to get through.
Speaker 1: Your brain is too busy to feel pain, I imagine
Speaker 1: this is what Patrick Swayzy's brain was doing through most
Speaker 1: of Roadhouse. While VR has become an effective tool for
Speaker 1: treating acute pain, the question remains whether or not it
Speaker 1: will be equally as useful when dealing with chronic pain.
Speaker 1: Much of that is dependent upon the patient following instructions
Speaker 1: and using the VR hardware to go into a virtual environment.
Speaker 1: It's possible that future hospitals will put post op patients
Speaker 1: through virtual reality pain management sessions, improving their overall quality
Speaker 1: of life while avoiding the use of chemical pain suppressants.
Speaker 1: That's all for today. To learn more about virtual reality
Speaker 1: and medicine, subscribe to the tech Stuff podcast. We explore
Speaker 1: these and other tech topics in much greater detail. See
Speaker 1: You Against It.