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You are here: Home / Articles / Virtual Reality Therapy Is Feasible for Rheumatology Patients

Virtual Reality Therapy Is Feasible for Rheumatology Patients

January 19, 2021 • By Ruth Jessen Hickman, MD

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whiteMocca / shutterstock.com

whiteMocca / shutterstock.com

A recent pilot study explores the feasibility of virtual reality-based pain interventions for people with rheumatic con­ditions.1 Although the work is in its early stages, it may someday represent a new non-pharmacological tool for patients with chronic pain.

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VR for Treatment

R. Swamy Venuturupalli, MD, FACR, is an associate clinical professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, and a practicing rheumatologist at Cedars Sinai Medical Center. He is the first author of “Virtual Reality-Based Biofeedback and Guided Meditation in Rheumatology: A Pilot Study.”1

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Virtual reality (VR) uses a combination of technologies, such as head-mounted displays, headphones and specially designed software, to create compelling sensations of an alternate, interactive environment in three-dimensional space. “The premise is that each person experiencing VR is placed into an immersive environment in which the brain, in a sense, can get hijacked to believe that what is being perceived in that virtual environment is, in fact, real,” Dr. Venuturupalli explains. 

Different software for VR systems can be used to create different types of experiences. For example, some programs can take patients through a meditative mindfulness VR experience. Mindfulness meditation practices in non-VR settings have been shown to have positive psychological impacts for some patients with chronic pain.2

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Similarly, VR platforms can be used to take patients through biofeedback sessions, helping them learn to control autonomic processes such as respiratory rate. 

“Biofeedback allows a person to get into a deep state of relaxation whereby their autonomic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system in particular is firing at a higher rate,” explains Dr. Venuturupalli. “More parasympathetic activity results in a relaxed state with slower breathing and heart rate and has also been shown in numerous studies to modulate pain.”

Dr. Venuturupalli

Dr. Venuturupalli

VR may mediate its effects through a variety of mechanisms, partly dependent on the software used. For example, VR may reduce pain-related activity in the insula and the thalamus.3 Through engaging the person’s senses, VR modulates how nociceptive signals are perceived by an individual.4 Dr. Venuturupalli points out one of the advantages of using a VR platform to perform such potentially stress-reducing activities: “Even a novice who has never done biofeedback or meditation is able to achieve some of those results in an easy manner when using this technology.”

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Dr. Venuturupalli notes that interest in VR as a treatment modality has expanded in the past 10 years. He adds that a fair amount of data have demonstrated the benefit for VR for acute pain episodes, for example, for burn victims having their dressings changed.5 However, less work has been done in chronic pain. The research team could find no studies examining VR specifically in an outpatient rheumatology setting. Dr. Venuturupalli and colleagues initiated a pilot study to gather preliminary information that might ultimately help them develop an intervention for people with rheumatic diseases.

Pages: 1 2 3 | Single Page

Filed Under: Research Reviews Tagged With: Chronic pain, meditation, Pain Management, Technology, virtual realityIssue: January 2021

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About Ruth Jessen Hickman, MD

Ruth Jessen Hickman, MD, was born and raised in eastern Kentucky, where she first cultivated her love of literature, writing and personal narratives. She attended Kenyon college, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy, summa cum laude. She worked with individuals with psychiatric conditions and later in a neuroscience lab at the University of Illinois, Chicago, before graduating from Indiana University Medical School in 2011. Instead of pursuing clinical medicine, Ruth opted to build on her strength of clearly explaining medical topics though a career as a freelance medical writer, writing both for lay people and for health professionals. She writes across the biomedical sciences, but holds strong interests in rheumatology, neurology, autoimmune diseases, genetics, and the intersection of broader social, cultural and emotional contexts with biomedical topics. Ruth now lives in Bloomington, Ind., with her husband, son and cat. She can be contacted via her website at ruthjessenhickman.com.

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