Virtual reality eases patients’ stress, pain
DESPITE being in and out of hospitals since the age of 16, one of Harmon Clarke’s biggest fears is having an intravenous line inserted into his arm.
The 34-year-old resident of Los Angeles has had more than 30 surgeries related to his Crohn’s disease, but getting stuck with an IV needle has never gotten less stressful.
“Because of my Crohn’s I get really dehydrated, which makes it really challenging to get an IV in,” Clarke said. “One time, literally eight different IV nurses had come into my room trying to get a line in, and I’m in tears. I can’t do my procedure or surgery until we get this done, and it was just like a nightmare.”
So that day he tried an experiment. As part of a research project at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre, Clarke had been given a virtual-reality headset at the bedside to use when he felt pain. It was programmed with immersive, multisensory 3-D content designed to distract patients from pain. Clarke popped the VR headset on, and his bustling hospital room was immediately replaced with the natural, calming beauty of Yellowstone National Park. He relaxed - and a nurse was able to get an IV started for him in no time.
Since then, he has used the VR headset for IV insertions, blood draws, breakthrough pain between scheduled doses of medication and even insomnia.
Erin Martucci, 42, tried virtual reality for the first time in a very different but also incredibly painful situation: During labour. For the birth of her second child, she told her obstetrician that she wanted a natural birth, without an epidural or any pain medication. But as her labour quickly progressed, fear and anxiety began to take over.
“I could tell the contractions were coming quicker, and . . . I started panicking a little bit,” said Martucci, of New Hampton, New York. “I started teetering, like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m not going to be able to do this.’ “
Before going forward with an epidural, her doctor offered her a VR headset.
The doctor “put the apparatus on me, and I was immediately in a beach scene and being comforted by the audio of a woman’s voice going through the breathing with me,” she said. “Having the visual and narration definitely calmed me down and took away that anxiety, and I knew that I could do it without the epidural.”
After almost two hours of labour, the doctor removed the
The doctor put the apparatus on me, and I was immediately in a beach scene and being comforted by the audio of a woman’s voice going through the breathing with me. Having the visual and narration definitely calmed me down and took away that anxiety, and I knew that I could do it without the epidural. – Erin Martucci, 42, who gave birth with the aid of virtual reality
headset. It was time for Martucci to push and deliver her baby. Within a minute, she gave birth to a healthy girl.
“I was, like, ‘What’s going on? Why are you taking this away now?’ Because we didn’t talk ahead of time what was going to happen, I really thought that I was going to use these goggles as I’m pushing my baby out!” she said. The VR “helped me get through what I was so fearful of - like that I wasn’t able to do it - and I delivered my baby without any assistance of drugs.”
Clarke and Martucci represent a growing number of patients treated with virtual-reality distraction for pain in a hospital setting. Cedars-Sinai has used the technology on more than 2,500 patients since 2016, more than any other hospital in the world. Martucci’s obstetriciangynaecologist, Ralph Anderson, who practises at Orange Regional Medical Center in Middletown, New York, has helped more than 50 women ease pain during childbirth with VR.
And Los Angeles-based Applied VR, a company that sells a VR kit and creates its own therapeutic content, has partnered with more than 100 hospitals, including Inova Mount Vernon Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
“Virtual reality is part of our culture now, so it’s not as alien of a technology as it once was. I think people look at it as an opportunity to deliver better patient care,” said Jeffrey Gold, director of the Paediatric Pain Management Clinic at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, which began using VR in 2004. “Maybe VR can complement a lower dose of pain medication or will eliminate the need for medicine altogether for some patients, which would be optimal.”