Stanley Johnson is not a fan of the needles. The 67 -year -old Air Force veteran has endured his right part of Pakes over the years, but when it has been decided that IV perfusions would be the best driving line to treat his iron deficiency, entering this first session felt. He therefore brought what has become a basic food in his personal anxiety toolbox: his Apple Vision Pro.
Johnson has taken the use of the immersive well-being application, TrippTo relieve his anxiety, and he says it was a great help to go through his treatments, especially at the beginning. The application offers a number of relaxation and mindfulness experiences for AR / VR helmets and mobile, from guided meditation to soothing sound landscapes and breathing. “This first time, I was anxious,” said Johnson. “I would do the breathing exercises to put my mind in what Tripp puts me. Then I started watching movies. ”
Regarding infusion therapy, treatments can be long, uncomfortable chairs and time without distraction are difficult. Watching a film in the helmet “instead of watching this little screen they had on the wall,” said Johnson, is “phenomenal”. It is transporting.
“I can see it better than I can in a theater,” he said. “This is one of the things I did when I started the IV infusions … You have this IV which is in you for an hour, two hours – could as well watch a film and choose the one I want rather than the one that is at random up there, or the food chain or something like that.”
Since the creation of virtual and increased reality devices, there has been an interest in the way technology could be used in health environments, both to improve patient experiences and as an improved training and visualization tool for doctors. Studies dating back to 2000 have studied VR potential to help In stress reduction, pain management, physiotherapy and more.
But it was only during the last decade that it has become enough possible to seriously explore, thanks to the rise of consumers’ VR helmets, a wave inaugurated by the original Oculus Rift. Today, VR, AR and Mixed VR reality systems (and what Apple calls “space computer science”) are not difficult to find. And with options such as quest 3 of $ 300 from Meta, it is possible to obtain a decent VR configuration for a relatively low cost. Not only can patients bring their own helmets, but some clinics and hospitals have already started their own studies with this technology.
In a trial carried out from the end of 2021 to 2023, whose results have been published recently In the Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing, the researchers recruited 90 patients who received chemotherapy at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center infusion clinic in Nashville and provided half of them with a 12-minute VR session during their treatment, while the other half served as a control group. Patients in the VR group have been shown visits told of places such as Venice, AGRA and the Ecuadorian Amazon. All participants recorded their stress level, pain and mood before and after the sessions.
“Overall, there has been an improvement in the study group compared to the control group,” said Cody Stsel, one of the study authors. “We have seen that it had a positive impact on the patient’s side effects.
In addition to the self-depressed notes provided by patients, the researchers measured their heart rate before and halfway through the 12-minute sessions and found that the measures supported their feeling of reduced stress. The difference was significant between the control group and the patients who used VR, with the heart rate among this last group decreasing an average of 6.6 beats per minute in the middle, according to the newspaper. Above all, patients also pointed out if they had undergone cybersickness, the condition similar to transport evil that RV induces in some people.
“What we have found is that patients have really experienced no measurable transportation,” said Stsel. “All the responses at all levels were really low with this, but we were intentional when we chose programming to choose those who had a low rating of transport to start. We had chosen these tourist videos where they are essentially standing, because we wanted to avoid all of this – we certainly do not want to do something worse if they are already more important.”
According to the researchers, the results suggest that RV could be an effective and accessible distraction tool for patients undergoing treatments such as chemotherapy. Even if patients do not bring their own devices, for a clinic, the entry cost is low, “a few hundred dollars to start,” notes Stsel. “As long as you clean [the headsets] Well and take care of them, they will last a good time. “But the potential advantages – relieve stress and pain – are great.
“Modern virtual reality consumes so much of your senses that it is very easy to temporarily forget where you are and what you live, and therefore patients are really able to focus on experience,” said Stsel. “It removes them somehow all the other things they have.”
Additional research on the subject could shed light on the effectiveness of VR in the relief of patients with higher pain levels, or if other types of content would work better for certain situations. For patients who are already attacking immersive virtual worlds to help them spend difficult days, however, this is harmless.
On RedditJohnson shared a selfie from him carrying his Apple Vision Pro during a infusion, and other users rang to share where they had brought their own helmets to pass the time: four -hour dialysis sessions; chemo; A hospital stay in the isolation room. That a person plays games, watch a film or use an application to calm down, people “need a distraction, something she loves,” said Johnson. “In the end, if you are in this type of environment, you want to distract pain.”
This article originally appeared on engadget to
