Clinical utility of virtual reality in pain management: a comprehensive research review
Maria Matsangidou, Chee Siang Ang, Mohamed Sakel · British Journal of Neuroscience Nursing · 2017
Virtual reality is a technology that allows users to experience a computer-simulated reality with visual, auditory, tactile and olfactory aspects. In recent decades, there has been considerable interest in using virtual reality for clinical purposes, including pain management. This articles describes a systematic review of research on virtual reality and pain management, with the aim of examining the feasibility of using virtual reality technologies and content design approaches in real-world clinical situations. More specifically, this article focuses on consumer virtual reality technologies. An exhaustive search identified 29 relevant studies from 2009 to 2016. Overall, the studies indicate that virtual reality is an effective technology to ameliorate pain in clinical settings. However, their results are inconclusive. Further research is needed to discover under which circumstances virtual reality is an efficient tool and the attributes or characteristics of virtual reality that are crucial in pain management.