VIRTUAL REALITY HELPS KIDS ESCAPE FROM PAIN

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By Kerry Sheridan

A pilot study in San Francisco has shown that virtual reality (VR) can help children and teens escape from the pain of sickle cell disease, and future studies are planned to ease discomfort for youths being treated for cancer.

The idea came from video game developer Simon Robertson, who also happened to be a volunteer at the University of California San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland.

Decreasing the Pain Felt

Robertson said he had read about pioneering research led by Hunter Hoffman at the University of Washington in 2000, showing that VR helped decrease the pain felt by adolescent burn patients as they had their wounds dressed.

“I remember reading that and thinking, ‘Oh, that is fantastic that they do that,’” said Robertson. “I just assumed they did that in every hospital now because this research is really convincing. But I was disappointed to discover that they were not doing it at my local hospital, and they were not doing it elsewhere.”

So Robertson began creating relaxing virtual environments to help distract young people from pain.

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