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SnowWorld VR Game Reduces Pain For Burn Patients
Bonker writes "The Beeb has news of a simple virtual reality game being used during treatments and rehabilitation for burn patients. Players who engage in a fast-paced snowball fight with penguins and snowmen report feeling less pain. SnowWorld was developed by Professor Hunter Hoffman and Professor David Patterson at the University of Washington Harborview Burn Center in Seattle. Hoffman said, 'Because humans are so visually dominant, wherever you're looking typically that's where your attention is focused. (For patients) during wound care, when they're getting their bandages changed, they're looking at these different tools that the nurses are using to treat them, and just looking at those objects makes them anxious. They begin to associate objects in the room with high pain so you can imagine that day after day they start to develop psychological associations between the treatment room and pain, amplifying how much pain they experience.'"
I REALLY wish my dentist had some kind of distraction... I mean going to the dentists is a really unfun experience generally speaking. I'd love to see TV, or a little game to draw attention from the drilling, poking, pulling, and injections.
Is it just the taking away of attention from the treatment that causes it, or is it the fact that it's a snow game?
When I was a kid, I was on some drugs that the doctors had to occasionally monitor. Its been a long time, but, still to this day I have the occasional flobotomist who tells me "Don't you want to look away?", or is a little taken aback by the fact that I just sit there and watch the needle go in, and the blood come out. It really doesn't hurt that much (unless they fuck it up...)
Then again, I am also told that I am a flobotomists dream "You don't have veins, you have hoses" one told me, as she drew the 6th vial of blood, without having to switch veins.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Now they'll associate the pain with snow and penguins! (surely this can't be some MS plot... right? Right?!)
One that hath name thou can not otter
i remember seeing stuff like this posted here in the past.
i believe it was a game about people destroying cancer cells having a beneficial effect on them.
I mean it's probably not so easy now being an adult, but video games have always been a huge help when it comes to getting over sicknesses. It makes perfect sense for burn victims, especially, to have an immersive type of distraction. We have the ability to, so why not?
Also, I'm not sure why they came up with a brand-new game for this, when they could have just set up Mario 64 and had them race the penguin on loop.
It's always confirmation bias!
If they really want to distract people, they need to get them playing WoW.
Get their level 30 characters ganked by night elf hunters that hump your corpse, then /spit, /point, /laugh at you and they'll eventually nerd rage enough that they can put their fist through a wall without feeling pain.
What is is with /. posting research that first-year psych students have been learning for the last decade? Between this and the "self-control predicts future success" story, I feel like I'm back in undergrad.
Clearly it's the penguins that are helping!
In another study, patients who played a game that featured windows and paper-clips reported much levels of pain...
"They begin to associate objects in the room with high pain..."
They just need to create different associations.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
This has been around for a while, partly cause it's academic research. Still very cool. ahaha
(2008) http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2008/11/snowy-game-vr-goggles-take-burn-victims-minds-off-of-pain.ars
(2004) http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?language=english&type=24119&article_id=218392308&cat=all
If SnowWorld helps that much imagine what PornWorld will do!
This is a very, very old story. The SnowWorld project at UW's HITLab has been around for a very long time. Here's the earliest publication, from 2001, that I could find. Only a decade ago:
Hoffman, H.G., Patterson, D.R., Carrougher, G.J. and Sharar, S. (2001). The effectiveness of virtual reality based pain control with multiple treatments. Clinical Journal of Pain, 17, 229-235. PDF
Anyone else notice how his name is more or less a mash up of Hunter Thompson and Albert Hofmann?
FOXTROT UNIFORM CHARLIE KILO
I suffered 2nd and 3rd degree burns on my hand about 5 years ago, and let me tell you, I wish I had something like this to take my mind off the pain. The best theyu could do for me was for me to watch movies. That just doesn't provide enough to focus on to be able to ignore the pain. A video game definitaley would have helped.
I wonder of one of the other effects is that playing a fast game kicks in the fight part of the fight or flight reflex. In this state the body releases natural pain killing chemicals that increase one's ability to fight and not get distracted by pain.
A game filled with snow helping burn victims feel less pain? Imagine that.
http://games.slashdot.org/story/08/11/15/0210248/VR-Snow-Game-Functions-As-Pain-Management
This research was published in Scientific American in 2004.
I think I still have that issue on my book shelf, somewhere.
Old hat by now!
A MS 'victim', I have pins stuck in me at least every week, and other painfully tiresome actions as well. When there isn't a telly to distract, him indoors reads whatever drivel he's reading to me - immunobiology, dendrochronology, economic history. Concentrating on that helps blur the mind-burning.
Obviously, greater pain requires greater distraction.