Virtual Reality as Pain Management?

Virtual reality (VR) technology has long been studied for its potential analgesic effect. Studies have been produced regarding its usage in the dentist chair to reduce pain and anxiety, and to reduce pain while dressing the wounds of burn victims.  
Publishing in the Royal Society Open Science, York St. John University researchers have found that auditory simulation is a key component to increasing VR’s pain management capabilities.
In the study, the researchers outfitted 32 healthy adults with an Oculus Rift headset and asked them to play the racing game “Radial-G.” While playing, the players’ hands were submerged in a container of water, the temperature of which was 32 Fahrenheit.



With the head-mounted display and sound, participants kept their hand in water for an average 79 seconds. Without the sound, they kept their hand submerged for an average 56 seconds. With no virtual reality or sound, the average submersion time was 30 seconds.“The inclusion of sound alongside the VR game is likely to have been more … demanding than both aspects in isolation, thereby leading to less attentional resources that could be allocated to the pain stimulus,” the researchers wrote. “This is consistent with the finding that sound on its own also increased pain tolerance, but not to the same extent.”

With only sound, participants kept their hands in the cold water for an average 40 seconds.

Houman Danesh, the director of integrative pain management at Mount Sinai Hospital, told MIT Technology Review that mind distractions like VR do result in people feeling less pain. However, with the limited scope of York St. John University’s study, he’s unsure if the results will transfer to patients with different kinds of pain.

“We need to be careful not to draw too many conclusions from a relatively small, lab-based study on healthy individuals,” wrote Edmund Keogh, of the University of Bath’ Department of Psychology, in The Conversation. “After all, the level of pain experienced was relatively mild, controllable and less threatening than the pain experienced by those in an actual clinical setting.”

Moving forward, the York St. John University researchers suggest future studies differentiate the types of sounds that are most effective at distracting from pain.