More in depth: Implementations of Post-Operative Recovery using Virtual Realities.

Vocabulary

Laparoscopy: Examination of the abdominal organs via surgical methods to pinpoint the cause behind discomfort or disease in the abdominopelvic region.

Analgesic: A medicine prescribed to reduce pain from surgical operations, general pain, etc.

Synthetic: Artificial, Unnatural.

Pharmaceutical: Relating to pharmacology: study of medicine, drugs, and chemicals on living organisms.

(Definitions paraphrased from Microsoft Bing)

Introduction

Post-operative recovery is an inevitable experience for patients undergoing surgery. While recovery may be positive, it can be an arduous journey. New advancements in virtual reality help recovering patients cope with their own situation. In this article, I will elaborate on different virtual reality implementations of post-operative care.

Virtual Reality-mediated Therapy

The current scope of healthcare fails to fully acknowledge pain after a laparoscopy. However, virtual reality therapy (VRT) mitigates this issue. In addition, VRT holds a high analgesic potential compared to opioids. A study was conducted by a group of doctors where visual therapy was administered with a 10-minute therapy and 10-minute break time. This was followed by a final session of 10-minute therapy. According to results, there was a high rate of satisfaction and pain reduction among patients, concluding that VRT is an effective advancement on post-operative care. (Payne et al., 2022)

Virtual Reality Hypnosis

Another substantial advancement in VR-post-op implementation is hypnosis via virtual reality. Fortunately, this is not hypnosis used for malicious purposes. According to the (Lavine, 2022), virtual reality has a high potential for psychological alteration. For example, a wearer was instructed to jump off a building (in virtual reality) and they reflected on how quickly virtual reality altered their thoughts. In the world of healthcare, virtual reality hypnosis is growing in implementation, especially in burn patients recovering after procedures. For instance, a scenery of a tree with ambient nature can be generated by a computer. This synthetic environment can nullify most of the pain from procedures such as changing burn bandages on burn patients. Furthermore, there is a catalog of sceneries to choose from in order to fit patient's individual needs for hypnotic recovery. All in all, hypnosis is a great alternative option to pharmaceutical recovery.

Conclusion

Both virtual reality-mediated therapy and hypnosis are part of the face of future post-operative recovery. Overtime, the long dwelling opioid addiction might decrease and be replaced by these revolutionary methods. Not only is virtual reality a truly fascinating invention that can take care of not just personal entertainment, but it can also shape the future of post-operative recovery.

References

Lavine, G. (2022, June 28). Using virtual reality to treat real pain - can immersive experiences

provide relief by distracting patients from pain? Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://heal.nih.gov/news/stories/virtualreality#:~:text=Research%20has%20shown%20that%20virtual%20reality%20%28VR%29%20can,not%20noticing%20what%20is%20normally%20an%20excruciating%20process.

Payne, O., Smith, V., Rolnik, D. L., Davies-Tuck, M., Warty, R., Seo, D., Wetherell, L., Murday, H. K., Nair, A., Kaur, R., & Vollenhoven, B. (2022). Virtual reality and its use in post-operative pain following laparoscopy: a feasibility study. Scientific reports, 12(1), 13137. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-17183-2