Doctors are testing the use of VR headsets instead of general anaesthetics for young patients

[CDX]

https://www.zdnet.com/article/docto...d-of-general-anaesthetics-for-young-patients/

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A year ago, the hospital started using VR headsets to entertain and educate its young patients; now, it has found it could also distract them away from painful operations.​

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At the Children's Hospital in Colorado, doctors are using virtual reality, rather than general anaesthetics, to help young patients' to get through painful procedures.​

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Lenovo said by using VR as a calming distraction, several patients have been able to undergo mild to moderately painful treatments whilst awake, cutting down lengthy recovery times, and reducing the need for medication.​

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"The human brain has limited bandwidth for what it can pay attention to," said Joe Albietz, medical director at Children's Hospital Colorado. "The more it is engaged in a VR experience, the less it can perceive the pain signals coming through."​

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"If it's not paying attention to those pain signals, they might as well not exist."​

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Launched last year, the VR program is dubbed "Starlight Xperience" and is the result of a three-way partnership between Lenovo, app management company SOTI, and the Starlight Children's Foundation.​

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The Mirage Solo is the only standalone headset that supports Google's Daydream platform, which Starlight Xperience runs on.​

What a unique use case for VR.

 

[metalslimer]

I saw a research paper a few years about using VR for patients in burn wards to help with pain. Definitely a cool future use.

 

[Son Goku]

My brother is anesthesiologist. He's gonna love this though because apparently kids are the worst

 

[Septimus Prime]

"The human brain has limited bandwidth for what it can pay attention to," said Joe Albietz, medical director at Children's Hospital Colorado. "The more it is engaged in a VR experience, the less it can perceive the pain signals coming through."

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So when someone tells you they're good at multitasking, they're lying.

 

[Acorn]

Cool if it works but personally I'd always prefer general anesthesia.

 

[wwm0nkey]

VR in the medical field is awesome, I work at Cincinnati Children's and we are doing some real cool stuff :)

 

[TheJackdog]

is this like distracting my dog with a treat while he gets a shot?

 

[Border]

That sounds completely unworkable to me. I mean, maybe you can distract a kid who is about the get a tetanus shot or something.....but not from a full-on surgical procedure.

The next time you go to the dentist, do you want novacaine or a game of AstroBot?

 

[Nude_Tayne]

The fact that this even works is just fascinating. Weird how the brain processes pain.

 

[Border]

Didn't Google just recently dump/abandon Daydream?

 

[Sabretooth]

The next time you go to the dentist, do you want novacaine or a game of AstroBot?

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[Ringten]

Yeh..uhm dont think this can work lol

 

[Poppy]

thats how they trick you into willingly entering the procedure to become a horrifying amalgam of flesh and machine to serve our corporate overlords

 

[Ogodei]

Doesn't general anesthetic have a higher chance of harming kids? Good news for this.

 

[nano]

That sounds completely unworkable to me. I mean, maybe you can distract a kid who is about the get a tetanus shot or something.....but not from a full-on surgical procedure.

The next time you go to the dentist, do you want novacaine or a game of AstroBot?

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The title is slightly exaggerated. It's not that they're doing a full blown surgery without anaesthesia.

From the article:

Lenovo said by using VR as a calming distraction, several patients have been able to undergo mild to moderately painful treatments whilst awake, cutting down lengthy recovery times, and reducing the need for medication.

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The technology is being used so that when children face an invasive procedures like endoscopy, only a local anaesthetic was required. The headset was also worn during lumbar puncture, during which a thin needle is inserted between the bones in the lower spine, or while dressing damaged limbs, sometimes with no additional anaesthetic needed at all.

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[Syriel]

That sounds completely unworkable to me. I mean, maybe you can distract a kid who is about the get a tetanus shot or something.....but not from a full-on surgical procedure.

The next time you go to the dentist, do you want novacaine or a game of AstroBot?

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This is replacing the need for general, not local.

I mean, doctors can do brain surgery while the patient is awake (they have to in some cases to ensure they don't damage a key section).

 

[lt519]

That sounds completely unworkable to me. I mean, maybe you can distract a kid who is about the get a tetanus shot or something.....but not from a full-on surgical procedure.

The next time you go to the dentist, do you want novacaine or a game of AstroBot?

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In emergency medicine there are often times where an anesthesiologist may not be available to instantly provide pain relief in the time frame you need it. One of my best friends wife had AML and she had to get a bone marrow biopsy immediately and they couldn't line up anesthesia for her without waiting 3 days and at that point it was more critical they do the biopsy immediately. It was incredibly painful for her, I'm sure she would have appreciated an alternative.

 

[Acidote]

A friend of mine has already started a project using VR headsets for chemotherapy, dialysis and other long treatments to help with themood and mental health of those patients and as far as I know it has been very successful. Stuff like "being" on a paradisiacal beach while you get your chemo.

For children they're using more... distracting stuff like rollercoasters and the such so they can't focus on the unpleasantness or pain of certain procedures.

 

[TAJ]

I think a member here called Krejlooc has been working on VR pain relief for years, but with a much different approach.

 

[thesoapster]

All I fucking got were crackers with peanut butter.

 

[Ferrio]

All I fucking got were crackers with peanut butter.

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That's a weird VR game.

 

[thesoapster]

That's a weird VR game.

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To be fair it was only for removal of a deep splinter.

 

[Deleted member 9932]

and the kids play Operations-The VR experience.

 

[show me your skeleton]

love when things come out like this, that have already been successful, and you get a bunch of people just outright claiming it doesn't work.

 

[cakefoo]

That sounds completely unworkable to me. I mean, maybe you can distract a kid who is about the get a tetanus shot or something.....but not from a full-on surgical procedure.

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How can a proven effective treatment be "unworkable?" It's literally working. It might not have limitless potential but it's sure not ZERO. Who are you trying to fool?

 

[Steel]

This is one of those things that's an interesting fact more than an application. Cause, level of engagement is highly subjective.

 

[Deleted member 18360]

I mean, kids are weirdly suggestible and have relatively unsophisticated neurological development. I remember being able to eat tons of junkfood like cake or donuts as a kid where now it would make me feel sick, but it probably upset my stomach then, too, and I was just weirdly tuned out of it. It's the same thing when you started feeling nauseous as a kid. You'd maybe have a feeling that something was off but you wouldn't know what until your mouth literally started to sweat and then you get the gagging spasms, which I guess from the parental side of things explains why kids are like "I'm going to puke *bleh*" with like no pause between those actions lol. I think kids don't have a great connection to their bodies which does make me think something like this could work.

 

[Hyun Sai]

So when someone tells you they're good at multitasking, they're lying.

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Not really. It can be that that several of those tasks are on autopilot, muscle memory or whatever ^^

And some people may have more bandwidth than others anyway...

 

[abellwillring]

So when someone tells you they're good at multitasking, they're lying.

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People usually are full of shit with respect to this.. we have all been totally ruined now by constant distractions. However, I assume this is the sort of thing your brain can improve at over time. Kids are probably more susceptible to "overload" so to speak.

 

[Deleted member 12790]

I think a member here called Krejlooc has been working on VR pain relief for years, but with a much different approach.

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worked on this with md anderson for elderly people. we used a form of tetris effect (the actual hypnagogic effect, not the much later released game).

 

[DarthBuzzard]

So when someone tells you they're good at multitasking, they're lying.

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It's more like they can switch between focusing on one thing and another fast and consistently.

Yeh..uhm dont think this can work lol

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There are countless cases where it has worked, so yes, it works - but it depends on each individual case.

 

[Deleted member 45211]

Yeh..uhm dont think this can work lol

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Damn, that sucks. It sounds great.

 

[Deleted member 21709]

Yeh..uhm dont think this can work lol

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Oh ok

 

[CMDBob]

I saw a research paper a few years about using VR for patients in burn wards to help with pain. Definitely a cool future use.

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I remember that, as the guy working on that is where I do research (Sheffield Hallam University), met him a fair few times. They do cool stuff with the VR stuff, like the burns stuff, as well as using VR for training people to use myoelectric prosthetic limbs. Some cool VR applications.

 

[I am a Bird]

Give me drugs and a vr copy of tempest 3000

 

[Gunpei]

It's already been shown that distraction with a handheld game device works as well. In one paper they used a Game Gear with a Sonic game :-)

 

[Ringten]

Damn, that sucks. It sounds great.

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Oh ok

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You're welcome <3

In all seriousness though, the headline is misleading in my opinion.

It's a vague article. First of all it does not clarify what type of endoscopy we are talking about, which first of all is considered a minimal invasive technique and has various kinds.

If we say gastrointestinal endoscopy (probably what article meant): that requires local anesthetic and sedatives. GA is not needed except in very young patients. Again the article does not state their age. But the point is, VR is being used as a point of distraction and not as a possible replacement for GA in any way, shape or form since Sedatives and LA would still have been needed for sure.

Furthermore, a lumbar puncture does not require GA either. An Anesthetic is used yes, Epidural in particular but it's not general anesthesia.

I wont even go into the final example they give abour changing the dressing...

So yeh ✌ I am not sold as of yet.

 

[OtherWorldly]

You know this will work quite well while you are getting a root canal

 

[KKBB]

This is going to come back to haunt society when those kids grow up to be vr gaming addicts

 

[Deleted member 31133]

Today, I'm having a camera/laser shoved up my dick, threaded through my bladder and then up to my ureter to blast a 8mm kidney stone to bits, so I can then piss out small chunks of stone and blood later.

I'm being put to sleep during the procedure and even if I had the VR option, I'd still chose to be put to sleep. No matter how good the VR is, I am still going to be aware of a camera being put into my dick. Knock me out.

 

[Deleted member 19070]

Today, I'm having a camera/laser shoved up my dick, threaded through my bladder and then up to my ureter to blast a 8mm kidney stone to bits, so I can then piss out small chunks of stone and blood later.

I'm being put to sleep during the procedure and even if I had the VR option, I'd still chose to be put to sleep. No matter how good the VR is, I am still going to be aware of a camera being put into my dick. Knock me out.

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Yep me too. I use VR every single day but no way is it distracting enough to take my attention away from the pain. Maybe in someone who has never experienced VR before?

 

[Yams]

So when someone tells you they're good at multitasking, they're lying.

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Yes. There are studies on it

 

[Titik]

I try to watch something on youtube whenever I get my blood drawn out for labs so yeah this works.

 

[Hey Please]

So when someone tells you they're good at multitasking, they're lying.

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The lie that is the staple bullet point in all too many resumes.

 

[Alcoremortis]

If it could be certain to keep me still enough for the doctor's to work, I'd do this and local. General anesthesia is pretty dangerous and there's also occasionally cases of it causing paralysis but no pain blocking, leading to a patient being aware of the procedure and feel the whole thing but unable to alert the doctors or move. Doesn't happen often, but the thought of it being a possibility freaks me out.

 

[Handicapped Duck]

This is not much different than back in the day for myself where I would play Tetris DS and be in the zone while they gave me shots and the like. Still, really cool to see VR being used in hospitals, wish it was around when I was hospitalized.

 

[Fj0823]

So...Sword Art Online was right?

 

[Deleted member 9035]

"The human brain has limited bandwidth for what it can pay attention to," said Joe Albietz, medical director at Children's Hospital Colorado. "The more it is engaged in a VR experience, the less it can perceive the pain signals coming through."

"If it's not paying attention to those pain signals, they might as well not exist."

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So non-critical sensory data can completely override awareness to automatic nervous system responses?

I can't decide if that's good or bad design... but it sure explains a whole lot about weird human behavior!

 

[Deleted member 9035]

This is probably what's going on whenever you hear those stories about a 27 year old korean collapsing and dying after playing WoW for 40 hours straight.

 

[HeySeuss]

So when someone tells you they're good at multitasking, they're lying.

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Yep. The more things you do at the same time, your brain diminishes the effectiveness of each task with every task you add to try to keep up.

You may do 10 things well independently, but you will do those 10 things increasingly poorly with each thing at once. So people think they can multitask well but you just don't notice the drop in quality of work.