The pain management techniques in use are not good enough. Patients are suffering,a fact particularly disturbing when the patients are children. David Patterson from U.W. Harborview Burn Center and Hunter Hoffman, Ph.D. from the U.W. Human Interface Technology Laboratory co-originated the new technique of using immersive VR for pain control. The first virtual world used was SpiderWorld. Spiderworld was originally designed to treat spider phobics , but has also proved quite distracting for burn patients.
Patients fly through an icy canyon with a river and frigid waterfall.
Since patients often report re-living their original burn experience during wound care, SnowWorld was designed to help put out the fire. Our logic for why VR will reduce pain is as follows. Pain perception has a strong psychological component. The same incoming pain signal can be interpreted as painful or not, depending on what the patient is thinking. Pain requires conscious attention.