How VR Is Creating A Revolution: From Sex To Animal Rights

3. To reduce pain at the dentist

That’s right. This may seem like less of a game changer than some of VR’s other applications – but for dentist-phobes, it could be life-changing.

A paper published in the Environment and Behavior journal said that a simple VR experience can distract from pain – and even looked at some of the content that could be useful in this context.

According to the paper, called The Soothing Sea: A Virtual Coastal Walk Can Reduce Experienced and Recollected Pain, the anxiety, and pain medical procedures can provoke in patients can make some people less likely to undergo the treatment.

Researchers added: “Some people avoid or delay dental care because they experience fear and anxiety, and the expectation of pain has been identified as a major barrier to seeking dental care.

“Despite advances in dental care, patients still rate dental treatment as painful…It has been suggested that reducing the experience of pain and anxiety would lead to less unpleasant memories of the experience, and as a consequence increase the likelihood of future oral health care attendance.”

Distractions like television and music are said to help, and now that VR has become increasingly available, its use in pain management is becoming more popular.

So what kind of content can help distract from the dentist’s drill?

According to this paper: “Two studies tested how interacting with nature VR influenced experienced and recollected pain after 1 week.

“In Study 1, nature (coastal) VR reduced both experienced and recollected pain compared with no VR. In Study 2, nature (coastal) VR reduced experienced and recalled pain in dental patients, compared with urban VR and standard care.

“Together, these data show that…the content of the VR matters: Coastal nature is better than urban.”

Article source: https://www.technobuffalo.com/2017/10/29/how-vr-is-creating-a-revolution-from-sex-to-animal-rights/