Chronic Pain Treatment Using Virtual Reality
Anyone can fall victim to chronic pain. It is a common phenomenon that accompanies many symptoms and diseases. Doctors usually characterize chronic pain as any pain that lasts for more than three to six months.
There are several reasons for its occurrence. The feeling of pain comes from a series of messages that rush through one’s nervous system. When you injure or hurt yourself in a particular area of the body, the pain sensors of the body get alarmed immediately.
They transfer a message in the form of an electrical signal which travels through the nervous system to reach its destination, the brain. The brain after getting this signal processes it and conveys the message to the sensory organs about the painful sensations because of the injury.
Typically, this kind of pain ceases to exist when the cause of pain gets resolved as the body repairs the wound naturally through its healing process.
However, in the case of chronic pain, the nerves through the nervous systems continue to transmit painful sensations even after the healing process has happened.
Some of the leading causes of chronic pain include past injuries, history of surgery in the past, infections, migraine, nerve damage, chronic muscle pain such as fibromyalgia, etc. These kinds of chronic pains can range from mild to severe pain sensations like a dull ache to a feeling of soreness and stiffness.
Chronic pain causes a host of adverse effects on our body’s usual functioning. It induces the feeling of fatigue, mood swings, troubled sleeping circles, weakness by reaping the body’s energy and thus, inhibits us from participating in everyday life activities.
Chronic Pain and Its Adverse Effects on Mental Health
Chronic pain can severely interfere with our daily lives. If chronic pain remains untreated and unresolved, it can take a toll on our mental health by making us feel annoyed, depressed, and anxious. This condition is known as chronic pain syndrome, which is experienced by almost 25% of people encountering chronic pain.
Virtual Reality for Pain Management
The treatment of chronic pain is as diverse as the cause. It ranges from prescribed drugs such as painkillers, anti-depressant, mind, and body therapies such as biofeedback and meditation, physical therapy, acupuncture, changes in diet with herbal remedies to pain clinics dedicated to the treatment of chronic pain.
However, virtual reality is gradually occupying the pinnacle by becoming a leading and effective therapy for the treatment of chronic pain.
Pain management is becoming a major healthcare concern. Opioid medicines that are used for pain management, have a host of negative side effects that can lead to permanent disability in some body parts.
A growing number of researches have supported the use of virtual reality as an alternative and useful way to counter chronic pain management.
Virtual reality through its multifold applications and benefits is rapidly transforming the healthcare technology trends and changing the way traditional healthcare was perceived by patients and experts.
Virtual reality can significantly reduce the pain signals of the body. Consequently, it is emerging as a safe, drug-free solution in treating chronic pain.
Virtual Reality for Chronic Pain
Healthcare experts have incorporated various cognitive distraction methods while treating multiple painful experiences and sensations for quite some time. The parts of the brain responsible for the feeling of any kind of pain are called the somatosensory cortex and insula.
It has been noticed that these parts remain less active which significantly reduces the sensation of pain when a patient is immersed in the world of virtual reality.
According to a number of healthcare experts, virtual reality can distract and manipulate the mind of people from painful sensations.
Chronic pain treatment using VR
VR can help patients endure painful medical procedures. Hence, virtual reality speeds up the recovery process effectively by keeping patients focused and engaged through interactive virtual reality games and exercise.
Virtual reality has a huge potential in the process of pain management as a drug-free pain management alternative.
Virtual Reality technology orchestrates the experience of a three-dimensional, computer-generated experience. These environments are designed to give the users a sense of reality, even when they are trapped in a virtual world by manipulating the virtual world in a realistic way.
According to experts, when an individual remains engaged in an immersive experience, other stimuli including the body’s pain signals enter a state of harmony. In this way, virtual reality helps to manage acute and chronic pain.
Therefore, virtual reality has the potential to lower pain in a non-invasive and risk-free way. This quality is gaining popularity and being an instrumental reason, which can do away with opioid addictions and unpleasant procedures.
Effective and Risk-free Pain Management by Cognihab
Cognihab is incorporating virtual reality technology to provide next-generation VR-based healthcare solutions and change the healthcare experience for both patients and medical professionals.
Cognihab’s therapeutic virtual reality solutions for chronic pain management are emerging as an effective, non-pharmacological treatment for pain.
Our virtual reality-driven suites have been used to help in anxiety reduction, support physical rehabilitation, and distract patients during wound care and are trusted by leading doctors.
The potential of virtual reality in the healthcare sector is immense. Organizations such as Cognihab are constantly striving to provide more innovative and affordable technology, to help patients rise above their physical or mental limitations and difficulties through the use of virtual reality technology.
With each passing day, this technology and advanced procedures are getting widely adopted for more effective, yet interactive experiences
