Chronic pain is a challenging series of conditions that respond poorly to many forms of treatment.

Care often involves a mixture of self-management, psychologically informed support, movement and exercise, and limited use of medications and medical interventions. However, the effect of these approaches is usually limited.

Virtual reality has been proposed as a possible alternative. It could offer a way of improving both movement and engagement, and could even have beneficial effects on people's levels of pain.

Inhealth Pain Management and Impact VR have been working to explore the ways in which virtual reality could be put into practice by testing it in a busy pain clinic.

We were also able to give patients virtual reality headsets to take home, to see if this was another environment in which VR could stimulate a return to activity or interest while dealing with difficult pain.

Testimonials

"The use of VR transitioned well to this community setting and encouraged people to move in ways that they have not done for some time.

"Patients received VR headsets to take home, and the feedback was entirely positive once people had become accustomed to using the technology.

"We found that individuals who were quite severely socially isolated found that they were able to engage with new experiences and new ways of exploring their world.”

Tom Sheldon, physiotherapist specialist at InHealth

Grants

Proof of Concept (Grow MedTech). InHealth VR chronic pain management - July 2019 - June 2020.

GrowmedTech Translate Summer Student Projects. Support for the InHealth research. September 2019.