Can virtual reality help manage chronic pain?

Researchers have examined whether virtual reality may help reduce pain in patients with chronic orofacial pain conditions.

In the study, published in Pain, the researchers analyzed how immersive virtual reality environments affected pain processing in 28 patients with chronic orofacial pain conditions and 31 pain-free controls compared with mental imagery and a nonimmersive control condition.

Despite having lower pain thresholds and conditioned pain modulation effects and higher temporal summation, the patients with chronic orofacial pain conditions experienced comparable pain inhibition after participating in the immersive virtual reality environment as controls. Compared with mental imagery and the nonimmersive control condition, the immersive virtual reality environment offered greater pain modulatory effects. However, the immersive virtual reality environment did not impact temporal and spatial summation.

The researchers concluded that virtual reality may help increase pain thresholds and modulate pain perception in both patients with chronic pain and controls.

Read more: Pain

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