Virtual Reality Distraction Analgesia

Medical procedures that cause moderate to severe pain occur over a wide spectrum of patient ages and medical settings, yet do not always warrant formal anesthesia or deep sedation. For example, in conscious children with cutaneous burn injuries, the intense and repeated ‘therapeutic’ pain of daily burn wound debridement and/or post-burn physical therapy exacerbates the significant pain of the underlying burn injury itself, and can contribute to long-term complications of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and diminished quality of life. Pharmacologic analgesia and/or sedation are the cornerstones of treatment, but are often inadequate and limited by drug side effects. Thus, analgesic treatment for procedural pain is often complemented by non-pharmacologic techniques, such as cognitive modulation by attention/distraction or hypnosis.