10 ms·
A surgeon is giving patients VR instead of sedatives
- adventured 10y agoReminds me of Mark Cuban's experiment with VR to relieve a health problem: http://blogmaverick.com/2016/07/16/virtual-reality-gave-me-my-brain-back/ http://blogmaverick.com/2016/07/16/virtual-reality-gave-me-m...
- sandworm101 10y agoVR instead of sedatives, not instead of locals. This is vr mitigating mental stress not dulling actual pain. There have already been many studies linking vr to reduced requests for painkillers in childens hospitals, dulling real pain. That it too works to distract old people is no great leap.
- nom 10y agoYeah, it's not really a surprise that VR benefits patients undergoing surgery. What would you rather see during an operation? A sterile room with surgeons roaming around you, or a virtual calming environment?
- throwaway13298 10y agoMaybe I'm just a sick fuck, but I really enjoyed watching when they tore open my big toe a bit to remove an ingrown nail. If I recall correctly, they even put up a barrier so I wouldn't be able to see, but I asked them to take it down. I also like watching the needle go in when they draw blood or give me a shot.
- throwanem 10y ago"Sick fuck" seems a bit harsh. I've always put it down to spending my first few years in and out of hospitals all the damn time; it was either learn to deal or go crazy, and while some no doubt would argue strongly for the latter, at the very least it's fair to say I did both.
- pavel_lishin 10y agoI'm the opposite. I can't even watch fake needles go "into" arms on television.
- sandworm101 10y agoLol. Ive been on one set where the needles were real. Hiring a EMT to do a saline drip on a stand-in's arm for a closeup is cheaper than the fake rig.
- pavel_lishin 10y agoThis makes me wonder how often that's the case; how many real injections have I seen?
- Aaargh20318 10y agoHow about neither and you just knock me out completely ?
- dagw 10y agoThe only time I've been awake for surgery they pumped me so full of drugs that the sterile room was the best thing ever and for about an hour or two afterwards I wanted to go back for more surgery so that I could get more of those awesome drugs.
- pavel_lishin 10y agoI had something done under something akin to "twilight sleep" - it was oral surgery, and I took a pill in a doctor's office. It came out of a bottle stored in a safe, and I understand why - I was so afraid of the procedure, I started crying after taking the pill, but 10 minutes later I calmed down, and then I remember nothing - except a brief blip of the surgeon suturing something in my mouth - until getting home. Apparently I was awake and responsive enough to follow instructions throughout the procedure, but as far as my memory is concerned, it simply didn't happen. No wonder they kept those pills in a safe.
- sandworm101 10y agoDont care. Put me to sleep and let the docs use whatever environment they think best. I dont plan on participating much let alone judge the decor.
- pavel_lishin 10y agoSome people like having a sense of control. They may rather be aware of what's happening.
- rscho 10y agoSome surgeries can even take place without local anesthetics using only hypnosis (thyroidectomy, for example). I will however readily admit that opiates are often liberally used as an adjunct to hypnosis, and that cases where hypnosis works well enough to withhold anesthetic drugs are not that common.
- nom 10y agoDid you read the article? Yes, hypnosis can work (although an episode of 'House M.D.' comes to mind), but that doesn't relate to the point being made here.
- rscho 10y agoYes I did read the article. I must however admit that I commented based on personal experience instead of the article. My bad.
- sandworm101 10y agoThere is a great DrCox bit on youtube about hypnosis anesthetics. Some people can make a go of it, but there is a reason they still "restrain" such patients and keep a big needle of morphine on standby.
- rscho 10y agoThis kind of process is akin to clinical hypnosis (which falls within the realm of anesthesia, not surgery). Anesthesiologists have had the opportunity to specialize in clinical hypnosis for a few years now. However, the cost-effectiveness is difficult to demonstrate, because it requires staff to be totally involved in it, so you can no longer roam several ORs at once. I guess this is where VR comes in...
- nom 10y agoIt is explicitly stated in the article that the patient received a local anesthetic - the VR environment is only used to replaced the sedative (commonly used to used to distract the patient, not to remove physical pain)
- rscho 10y agoHypnosis can be and is used with regional anesthesia for such indications. It depends on the stress level of the patient, and whether specialized staff is available. You are right about the article, of course.
- sudhirj 10y agoYeah, same as VR, I don't suppose hypnosis removes pain - probably just provides a distraction to make sure the brain doesn't fill in the pain and discomfort the eyes are saying should be here.
- derekdahmer 10y agoNot quite the same thing, but my dentist lets me watch Netflix with noise cancelling headphones. I had a crown put in over 1.5 hours with anesthetic but lots of drilling and I almost didn't notice it was happening. It felt like barely 30 minutes had passed. The place is called Studio Dental if you're looking in SF.
- mdrzn 10y agoWow, now I wish my dentist allowed that! How did you watch Netflix? Cardboard set?
- daveguy 10y agoEventually we will develop the game: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(Star_Trek:_The_Nex...
- frobozz 10y agoDammit! I hadn't lost the game in years.
- nannal 10y agohttps://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/anti_mind_virus.png https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/anti_mind_virus.png It's over, you're welcome
- NTripleOne 10y agoAlso the game ended back in like 2010 when someone called quads and rolled quads.
- LoSboccacc 10y agohttp://fortune.com/2015/08/26/resolution-games-funding/ http://fortune.com/2015/08/26/resolution-games-funding/ they're already on it don't worry
- jakobegger 10y agoDistraction works really well in general; even without VR. The dentist discovered that my 3 year old son has a bit of caries; but she said that filling a cavity for small kids like him is only possible under anaesthesia. I thought this sounded ridiculous. My girlfriend found a different dentist who specialized on treating kids. She performed the procedure without any anaesthesia or sedatives by using lots of distractions, including a magic wand and elaborate stories about dwarves wandering in the forest of teeths. I wish my dentist distracted me like that :)
- olalonde 10y agoComplete medical newbie here... What is wrong with anaesthesia?
- d33 10y agoThe risk of any side effects, especially in a yet-to-fully-develop human? I wouldn't be surprised if the list included coma because someone got the dosage wrong. It's just not worth the risk at that point. (Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with medicine)
- saiya-jin 10y agoYou are mixing local anesthesia with complete pass-out by using NO2 or similar for surgeries (which has 1:10000 mortality ratio if I recall correctly) and side effects. Local anesthesia can be even in form of spray instead of injection, depends on severity. Heck, once I tried to chew coca leaves and that got me pretty numb in my mouth for quite some time, couldn't articulate properly etc. It's still chemistry put into the body messing up with pain signaling, but I wouldn't worry that much about it (or you'll go crazy with all possible things that could harm a kid one way or the other)
- rscho 10y agoPLEASE do not state fear-mongering numbers without source, especially about medicine! Anesthesia is safer than traveling by plane, nowadays. According to a 10 sec googling, the mortality is now sub 10/million/year, and that's including high-risk populations. source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2697561/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2697561/
- yaegers 10y agoSounds fine for people who are resistent to motion sickness. But, especially in a medical setting, what would they do if the patient became nauseated during surgery? Surely that can't be beneficial. And lying in bed while all senses tell your body you are stationary and only your eyes say "no, we are actually standing and the world is moving around us" will cause motion sickness. It is a normal response from the body. So you would be basically switching the sedatives with drugs to combat motion sickness when you want to use VR.
- chipperyman573 10y agoI don't know much about what causes motion sickness - My only experience was when I was developing a game for the Vive and I manually moved the CameraRig. How hard do you have to try to trick the body? Would sitting so your back and head are upright (and legs bent at ~90 degree angle) be enough? What if you were laying down but sitting up?
- Agentlien 10y agoThis makes me think of SnowWorld, a VR project which was used to help people take their mind off the pain when recovering from severe burns. The idea is that they play in virtual snow and it actually soothes the burn by distracting them from the physical pain and making them think of cool snow and ice. https://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/vrpain/ https://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/vrpain/
- mdrzn 10y agoIt's talked about in the article, but thanks for linking it.
- twoquestions 10y agoIf this is effective on people getting cut open, I wonder how effective such a thing could be to cut stress even in daily life! Anyone know of any good "calming" games on Steam that might help to de-stress after a long day? I used to play Journey to chill out, but I don't have a ps3 anymore, and even that game gets old after a while.
- Sinidir 10y agoThis is highly related to the Master Project we are doing at university right now. Trying to make games that have players using a relaxation technique in a playful way. Reading through the papers on the topic at the beginning of the project you could see that this stuff really works and works well. There are even attempts to treat mental problems like PTSD with VR. Exciting stuff.
- CHC-Cares 10y agoWe need help: Children's Hospital Colorado (CHC) serves from the Mexican to the Canadian border via it's Flight for Life program [1] that air-lifts children and adults in dire need to the ICU in Aurora. One of the not so nice parts of a children's ICU ward, and ICU care in general, is the issue of ICU psychosis [2][3]. In short, to keep you alive after severe trauma physicians must run the risk of inducing mental trauma (please read the citations for further information). Children can also undergo ICU psychosis. To compensate, anti-depressants and pain medications are prescribed to lessen the mental trauma, but these drugs also have interactions with other drugs and are thought to prolong recovery. Virtual Reality devices like the MS Hololens and the Occulus Rift may be able to help lessen the toll on these poor children by lessening the use of psychoactive drugs, increasing the rate of recovery, and decreasing the length of stay in critical care. AirBnB has a system like Google-Street view, but for apartment listings; you can take a virtual tour of the listing in VR and see if you like it. CHC could really use something like this for the kids. Imagine you are a 7 year old. Your last memory before waking up in the ICU was your mother and father being killed in an automobile accident. You wake up surrounded by strange beeping machines, you are no longer breathing, there are tubes in every hole in your body pumping in and out vital fluids and gasses, the doctors may have even made new holes in you to keep your blood moving, you are restrained in the bed to keep you from tearing out these life-saving methods, you are likely drugged to deal with the pain and mostly incoherent. This is a nightmare for just about any person, but it is especially terrible for children. Many people come out of ICU care with PTSD, many children come out with PTSD. VR devices could allow these patients to 'take five' and return virtually to their homes via the AirBnB like systems. These children could run in their back-yards or play in their rooms again, if only for an hour. C.S. Mott Children's Hospital in Michigan has run some pilot research with children [4] and the results are optimistic. The US Army has run some other pilot studies using VR for PTSD with returning Vets via the Bravemind program [5] and these results indicate success in using VR as a PTSD treatment. The limited results thus far indicate that VR in the ICU may be a viable method for recovery from severe trauma. This is where we need your help, HackerNews. Children are suffering. We need hackers, programmers, and administrative people to help get VR devices into hospitals and determine the efficacy of using these devices as treatment. I am not a 'CS' person, not like you all are. We need your expertise. Honestly, we don't know what is going to happen in the end, but we have to give it a shot. The kids need for us to give it the ol' college try. If you are interested in helping and have the time to dedicate, please email me (email is in my user-account). Thank you for reading this and for your time, we all appreciate it. [1] https://www.childrenscolorado.org/doctors-and-departments/departments/flight-for-life/ https://www.childrenscolorado.org/doctors-and-departments/de... [2]http://www.medicinenet.com/icu_psychosis/article.htm http://www.medicinenet.com/icu_psychosis/article.htm [3]https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/06/the-overlooked-danger-of-delirium-in-hospitals/394829/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/06/the-overl... [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIgxRhz6lmM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIgxRhz6lmM [5] http://ict.usc.edu/prototypes/pts/ http://ict.usc.edu/prototypes/pts/