Virtual Reality Pain Management for Addiction

AppliedVR, a startup company, teamed up with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for a study that found patients’ pain was reduced by an average of 24 percent after twenty minutes of using AppliedVR’s virtual reality software (Konow, 2016).

While virtual reality has been used to treat posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), it has not been used for the treatment of addiction. AppliedVR has created software for reducing anxiety and three different applications for pain management.

According to AppliedVR CEO Matthew Stout, “Part of what we’re doing right now is can we stop that cycle [of addiction] by prevention. Let’s staunch the bleeding, then let’s work on the internal side of things” (Konow, 2016). He also added, “It’s going to take us a little bit longer to develop a program for addicts, but there’s no reason why we can’t be successful there” (Konow, 2016).

Some hospitals and clinics are already using virtual reality to help with pain management after operations and during blood draws and epidurals.

References

Konow, D. (2016). This company is using virtual reality to combat pain and addiction. Retrieved from https://www.thefix.com/company-using-virtual-reality-combat-pain-addiction