Virtual Pain Relief?

In our article on the pain episode of Medicine Men Go Wild, we discussed how the doctors concluded that it was possible to distract yourself from pain and that this could be achieved more easily through practicing the art of meditation or self-hypnosis.

Now a virtual reality program aims to relieve pain by distracting the patients from it.  48 year old Hunter Hoffman, a cognitive psychologist, invented a program called SnowWorld, designed for acute-burn patients.  This immersive virtual reality sends users into a world of glaciers, penguins and snowballs to throw.

As all good hypnotherapists will know, to feel pain requires attention and SnowWorld is designed to distract the patient’s attention from their pain as their wounds are cleansed – an excruciating process.

Operating SnowWorld

Users wear a special helmet, goggles and headphones so they can manoeuvre through the program and listen to gentle music and sound effects as they play.

Hoffman is now working on virtual reality to deal with post traumatic stress, such as that experienced by soldiers returning from Iraq and witnesses of terrorist attacks.

Hoffman’s VR device is not new, in fact it has been used for almost a decade at the Harborview Medical Center’s burns unit.  David Patterson, a psychologist and pain expert at the Medical center, has found that tests show the benefits of the VR technology and he has helped Hoffman to refine SnowWorld.  Patterson has also been working on using SnowWorld in conjunction with hypnosis to block pain.

Read more in the Seattle Times