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Clinical Trial
. 2016 Dec 20;11(12):e0167523.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0167523. eCollection 2016.

The Impact of Virtual Reality on Chronic Pain

Ted Jones  1 , Todd Moore  2 , James Choo  1
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

The Impact of Virtual Reality on Chronic Pain

Ted Jones et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

The treatment of chronic pain could benefit from additional non-opioid interventions. Virtual reality (VR) has been shown to be effective in decreasing pain for procedural or acute pain but to date there have been few studies on its use in chronic pain. The present study was an investigation of the impact of a virtual reality application for chronic pain. Thirty (30) participants with various chronic pain conditions were offered a five-minute session using a virtual reality application called Cool! Participants were asked about their pain using a 0-10 visual analog scale rating before the VR session, during the session and immediately after the session. They were also asked about immersion into the VR world and about possible side effects. Pain was reduced from pre-session to post-session by 33%. Pain was reduced from pre-session during the VR session by 60%. These changes were both statistically significant at the p < .001 level. Three participants (10%) reported no change between pre and post pain ratings. Ten participants (33%) reported complete pain relief while doing the virtual reality session. All participants (100%) reported a decrease in pain to some degree between pre-session pain and during-session pain. The virtual reality experience was found here to provide a significant amount of pain relief. A head mounted display (HMD) was used with all subjects and no discomfort was experienced. Only one participant noted any side effects. VR seems to have promise as a non-opioid treatment for chronic pain and further investigation is warranted.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Photo of participant using the virtual reality application Cool!.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Screen shot from Cool! showing otters.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Screen shot from Cool! showing caves and flames.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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