A new study led by Dr. Henry Xiang, a professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at Nationwide Children’s Hospital sought to find whether active smartphone virtual reality (VR) games are more effective than standard care for pain management in pediatric burn injuries.
‘Participants who played the VR games reported significantly lower overall pain than participants in the standard care control group.’
As the results showed positive outcomes, Dr. Xiang said, “The smartphone-based VR game was very effective in reducing patient-reported pain.”
The study consisted of 90 children, aged 6 to 17 years in three treatment groups: active VR, passive VR, and standard care. The VR game was specifically designed for the study in such a way that the players recognize a cooling environment within the game and feel a space for active engagement . After the five to six minutes of dressing changes, the participants along with their care-givers reported about the user-experience of the game and the intensity of perceived pain.
As per the findings of the study published in the journal JAMA network open , the researchers found that,
Participants in the active VR group had reported significantly lower overall pain compared with participants in the standard care control group.
The active VR group also had a lower worst pain score than both the passive VR group and the standard care group.
“The future research direction is to evaluate whether smartphone-based VR games have an opioid-sparing effect,” added Dr. Xiang.
As the smartphones could be effective and space-saving , this study has overcome the bulkiness issue from previous research that insisted the use of computer games. Nurses also considered that these types of virtual games could be clinically useful in outpatient settings.
Source: Medindia
