Ten-minute virtual reality (VR) sessions have been found to significantly ease the pain of cancer patients during a clinical trial.
The short, calming VR experiences reduced the pain experienced by cancer patients in hospital, who still felt the benefit a day later.
The 128 individuals taking part in the trial, from Georgetown University School of Medicine and MedStar Health in the United States, were randomly placed into two conditions: watching ten minutes of guided imagery on an iPad tablet or an immersive VR experience.
The patients rated their pain from zero, meaning none at all, to ten, the worst pain, before and after the intervention. Both cohorts felt reduced pain but the change was more pronounced for the VR group.
“Results from this trial
