Virtual reality for reducing pain

Brain Logger: Chronic pain is debilitating, and it can cause patients to “fall through the cracks”. Health care institutions struggle to find ways to create “nets” and catch these patients. Pain medications include opioids which are used to treat chronic pain. Opioids often fail to treat the patient’s primary medical condition. As time goes by, patients tend to be unsatisfied with the results.
Also, there is a good chance that some of these types of pain medications will be abused. In fact, pain medicines such as opioids are part of the United States opioid crisis. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), every day, more than 115 people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids. (CDC/NCHS, 2017) The opioids include prescription drugs, including fentanyl, and synthetic street drugs such as heroin.
It is estimated that the total economic burden of prescription opioid misuse in the United States is $78.5 billion a year which includes the costs in health care, lost productivity, addiction therapy, and criminal justice involvement. (Florence, Zhou, Lou, & Xu, 2013).
One such therapy is known as mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness meditation is: “the intentional self-regulation of attention from moment to moment”.
(Goleman & Schwartz, 1876) This method has been used for quite some time. A study done in mindfulness meditation by Dr. Kabat-Zinn has reported that 65% of patients have exhibited a reduction of pain by more than 33% and about 50% of patients have reported a reduction of pain by 50% over a 10-week period of therapy. (Kabat-Zinn, 1982)
Some studies performed in mindfulness meditation have reported patients with strong feelings of anger towards their pain condition while others report some anxiety while undergoing mindfulness therapy. la Cour and Petersen point out that meditation therapy requires a learning curve for the patient to access the more important personal “inner space”. (la Cour & Petersen, 2015) This can be an exciting learning experience of discovery for some patients while other patients may see this as a constant battle that in itself can be a painful experience.