Virtual reality eases pain in kids with burns

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Playing virtual reality interactive games can significantly reduce the pain that children experience while undergoing treatment for burns, according to a new report.

Dr. Karen A. Grimmer, at the University of South Australia in Adelaide, and colleagues speculate in the journal BMC Pediatrics that virtual reality “works by distracting a child’s attention from painful stimuli, which in turn reduces the perceived intensity of pain.”

The researchers’ study included seven children ages 5 to 16 being treated for extensive burns. One half of each burn dressing change was performed with pain-killer medication only, while the other half was performed with the child engaged in virtual reality game playing, plus medication.

The children were asked to score their average pain experience at the end of each phase of the dressing change using a modified 10-point pain scale.

With pain-killing drugs only, the average pain score was 4.1, while treatment delivered along with virtual reality averaged 1.3. Every child but one had an improvement of at least 2 points when using virtual reality games, the team reports.

When interviewed, nurses and parents said they believed the children were more cooperative and less distressed and anxious during the virtual reality episodes.

Virtual reality “could be widely applied, and will allow children to relocate themselves to ‘another world’ during dressing changes, decreasing their attention to painful stimuli,” Grimmer’s team suggests.

SOURCE: BMC Pediatrics, March 3, 2005

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