Chronic Pain Essay

The fear of heights can sometimes leave people frozen in terror. There is large amount of evidence suggesting that virtual reality therapy has successfully helped alleviate conditions similar to PTSD. This is accomplished by slowly increasing the amount of stressors, as to not overload the patient with irrational fear. For example, with fear of heights, researchers can gradually increase the difficulty of the simulation, so that the height of the platform increases after every session. In a similar case study, 49 patients had volunteered to participate in a virtual reality treatment for their fear of flying. Results showed, “By the 6-month follow-up, 90% of treated participants had flown since completing treatment” (Anderson 2001). Effectiveness also hugely depends on plausibility and affordability. We need to consider if this treatment is convenient for

For their study, “47 undergraduate students at a Midwest university” were gathered through an online sign up process in which no demographics were collected in the study and the participants had the motivation of receiving class credit for their participation (556). Out of the 47, 2 participants were excluded from the final result due to problems with the procedure, leaving a total of 45. These individuals took part in a virtual reality simulation designed to help people overcome fear of heights. Each participant wore a specially designed set of goggles that allowed for the wearer to have a 360 degree view of the virtual environment and was given a hand-held controller to control their movements throughout the environment. The environment consisted of

By using virtual reality, VA researches can recreate a PTSD suffers traumatic memories and develop treatment based on actual experiences. Chris Crowe, PhD, a researcher and psychologist with the Atlanta VA Medical Center is enthusiastic about the process and states "We believe this has very exciting potential to treat people very quickly and in a way that makes them less vulnerable to relapse,"(VA outlines PTSD research, 2010) These types of research studies are providing veterans with a better quality of life and allotting the time researchers need for long term

What is pain? If you ask someone to tell you the definition of pain they will typically state something that hurts. Registered nurses should know the definition of pain and how it can be identified on their patients. However, Abdalrahim, Majali, Stomberg, and Bergbom (2010) propose that nurses did not receive adequate education in pain management and suggest the lack of knowledge hinders their ability to adequate control their patients’ pain. Therefore, the unethical treatment of pain can be traced back nurses.

When pain lasts three to six months or more, it is considered chronic pain. According to the American Geriatrics Association, more than 50 percent of seniors living at home and up to 80 percent of those in care facilities suffer from chronic pain. As a result, a great number of these seniors are not able to function properly during the day or sleep well at night. Some of the most frequent causes of chronic pain in seniors are arthritis, glaucoma, poor circulation, and nerve damage.

There are several assessment tools nurses use in in the field to assess geriatrics along with the rest of the population. Three most common assessment tools are, the pain scale, fall risk scale, and the depression scale.

The pros of virtual reality outweigh the cons of virtual reality. Virtual reality help a lot of people that are lonely and giving them some help, maybe boosting their confidence or even providing them with information on how to do something like getting a date. According to the source: “ ‘A lot of people are lonely.’ Anderson admits. ‘ They want some sort of entertainment or companionship or a little bit of both.’” (Article 2, Page 8) This shows how, virtual reality can be used to help out the lonely people, the people that don't have confidence. Virtual reality is more of like a voice for the voiceless. Also, another way virtual reality shows how it has many pros, and those pros beat out the cons the following shows this from the text (My Virtual Girlfriend) : “I’ve been in a real relationship for almost a year and , in some ways, playing My Virtual Girlfriend reminded me of what my boyfriend and my early dalliances felt like.” Furthermore, both quotes support the claim of how people are struggling and disabled people, letting people believe, and it gives a pro over a con. It doesn't let people struggle, it gives people options, and you may ask how? Well, virtual reality allows you to believe that you are this, you are good at this that feeds into your mind and you begin to build your confidence to get that entertainment to go out

Botella et al. (2010) evaluated the efficacy of VR apparatus called Emma’s world. Emma’s world consisted of a large screen projector which included virtual objects, music, sounds, images, colors, videos and texts designed to represent various traumatic events. The control condition included in-vivo and imaginal

Other researchers experiment with treatments to increase their effectiveness. The virtual reality simulators “might be good for people who are too avoidant to stand exposure therapy, because it puts them right there”. Among others described in the article, in one study with veterans of the current Iraq war, the participants are given a type of virtual reality that simulates combat conditions in Iraq, then randomizing them into a drug condition where they get D-cyclocerine, a placebo, or

“Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), specifically exposure therapy, has garnered a great deal of empirical support in the literature for the treatment of anxiety disorders” (Gerardi et al., 2010). Exposure therapy is an established PTSD treatment (Chambless & Ollendick, 2001) and so is a benchmark for comparing other therapies (Taylor et al, 2003). “Exposure therapy typically involves the patient repeatedly confronting the feared stimulus in a graded manner, either in imagination or in vivo. Emotional processing is an essential component of exposure therapy” (Gerardi et al., 2010). “Exposure therapy in the virtual environment allows the participant to experience a sense of presence in an immersive, computer-generated, three-dimensional,

Symptoms can be manifested in emotional and psychological ways such as insomnia, flashbacks, anxiety, depression, or increased agitation. Exposure therapy, without the use of VR, has been used as a source of treatment for PTSD, allowing a patient to gain greater mental control and knowledge of the traumatic event [8]. Though VR-graded exposure therapy (VRET), is also aimed to help patients understand the context of the traumatic event, VRET promotes emotional engagement, inhibiting the ability to bypass triggers

First, a study with only forty-nine subjects is a small sample size and not large enough data to state that the virtual reality trainings were significant. With that being said, the study stated to collect data over a long period of time however the collection period was only four weeks; in the rehabilitation world four weeks is not long at all. It would be suspected that a longer collection window would be needed to see results that would be able to be compared and analyzed further in regard to pre-and post-treatment. The pre-treatment was also collected after the second training, which creates a shorter time period and not valid control data. The study also completed a within-subject t-test, which means that there are some individual factors that can contribute to the findings compared to separate control and experimental groups. After reading this article there is not significant data to validate that virtual reality is helpful for those individuals suffering from vestibular

Most parts of the writing recommends that it was not up to this point be that as it may, that virtual restoration had been recognized as a genuinely viable strategy for treatment. This leap forward did not go the distance years of innovative work then again, however through late presentations of minimal effort computer game frameworks, for example, the Nintendo Wii. It was then that advisors observed computer games capacities to empower and divert patients, as well as to occupy them, enhancing agony administration, and inspire them to perform restorative errands

in many instances finding the exceptional course of motion concerning your joint soreness may include maintaining a diary to report all your experiences. A medical journal is a fine technique to pinpoint the factors that rationale the most agony bearing on your joint issues, as well as identify the variety of environment or routine that brings out the first-rate to your body.

The perception of pain involves a strong psychological component (). Depending on what the patient is thinking, an incoming pain signal can be perceived as more or less painful, psychological factors can also impact the amount of pain signals allowed to enter the brain (Rd 3). This is where virtual reality and hypnosis come in. VRT makes the patient imagine going into and engaging with the virtual world. The patient’s attention then, is focused in the virtual world rather than his wounds. Due to this lack of attention, and less time spent thinking about the pain there is a decrease in pain felt during the wound care procedure (Rd 2). Hypnosis is characterised by deep relaxation and suggestibility and is useful in minimising experience of pain (cite book). It works by inducing analgesia and then giving suggestions of