The Effects Of The Perception Of Pain

In the past, virtual reality technology was thought of by many as a gimmick, and the hope for it to become a mainstream technology was discarded as products did not work as how the public envisioned. However, the proper technology is now available to make virtual reality just that: a reality. The entertainment industry is on the verge of a monumental paradigm shift that will completely transform the way these entertainment mediums are experienced.

Pain perception can be less than might be expected from the extent of a physical injury. This was proven by a scientist called Susana Bantick, Oxford University, and colleagues who carried out a study on the influence of attention distracting pain processing (Bantick et al, 2002). During the experiment, brain processing was measured by measuring brain activity using fMRI. Participants rated pain from 1-10 when noxious heat stimulus was applied to their hand in the scanner. She then followed the same process but gave them a task which required cognitive processing; reducing the amount of focused attention on pain. Bantick, therefore, showed attention distraction can reduce the amount of pain perceived by the individual, also pain processing to the brain was reduced. This provides vital evidence that pain perception does not just depend on the injury alone.

There are many various kinds of prescription of pain relievers, which include: opioids, corticosteroids, antidepressants and anticonvulsants (anti-seizure medications). Among them I would like to focus on opioid medications and its side effects. Opioid medications are narcotic pain medications that contain natural poppy plant, synthetic opiates such as; methadone, fentanyl, tapentadol and tramadol, as well as the semi- synthetic opioids such as; oxycodone, hydrocodone, oxymorphone, hydromorphone and heroin. Opioid prescriptions are morphine (C17H19NO3), heroin (C21H23NO5), codeine (C18H21NO3) and thebaine (C19H21NO3). They are highly addictive substances are called opiates. Opioid medications have been used for hundreds and thousands of years to treat both pain and mental health problems. It is also use in a short-term pain after surgery. According to the survey in the past two decades, the prescription of opioid in the United States has been increased to the higher levels that is more than 600% (Paulozzi & Baldwin, 2012). However, that opioid medications are very dangerous to the patients’ respiratory system, other parts of the internal body and even can cause death. It should be only being use after wise discernment and with a great care.

Pain is a common symptom that is associated with numerous medical issues, including musculoskeletal problems that physical therapist see on a day to day basis. There are several different ways to treat pain and one of them is to provide a means of releasing opioids in the body to alter the pain experience. In fact, there are three different types of opioids: naturally occurring (endogenous or exogenous substances such as natural endorphins or poppy), semisynthetic (exogenous substances that contain both natural and synthetic agents), and synthetic agents (man-made substances used to mimic the effect of natural substances) used to decrease the symptom of pain.1

Article 11: Chronic pain is associated with impairment in sleep. The relationship between using prescribed opioids and sleep is unclear. The focus of the study was to examine differences in self-reported sleep quality between groups of patients who were different by chronic pain and prescribed opioid status. The use of opioids with chronic non-cancer pain continues to increase. Common adverse effects associated with the initiation of opioids including constipation, nausea, somnolence, and vomiting. Up to 50% of patients stop taking opioid therapy because of intolerance or insufficient pain relief. Research shows that pain often results in disruptions to sleep and impaired sleep itself a risk factor for pain. In a comprehensive review

In recent years, chronic pain has been affecting millions of Americans. Whether it is headaches or backaches, chronic pain can be continuous and excruciating for many. Pain management and relief have been mainly treated with prescriptions of opiates. However, people don’t realize that the number of deaths caused by over dosing has increased. This prevalence of prescribing opiates to aid chronic pain has triggered an addiction problem across the US. Although opiates can reduce chronic pain, this benefit may come at the cost of hospitalization for opioid addiction and as a result of overdose deaths. There is a need for advance research to determine whether or not this medication can be used in a manner that maximizes its effectiveness while minimizing the risks. Non-pharmacotherapy treatments could be the solution to this prescription of opiates problem in order to stop the rapid rise of opiate addictions.

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

Because severe pain is more difficult to control, Mrs R may become anxious and fatigued, and may also withdraw again from the regimen if there is no success in achieving pain relief; therefore, the preventive approach needs to be considered. (Wells, 2014). For an effective pain control pain, Mrs R should also keep a daily record of her pain. Writing a diary can help empower the patient in her own care, give her confidence and increase self-efficacy (Bastable, 2014). Also, a strategy of pain management is to combine opiods with non-narcotics, such as Tylenol, in order to enhance pain relief and to slowly decrease the use of narcotics overtime (Lewis, 2014). Mrs R was explained to always follow the right dosage of medication to optimize the narcotic results. A complete assessment of pain should be performed: PQRST. Pain is a subjective concept and the patient must describe the pain in order to provide an effective care plan (Jarvis, 2013). Responses to pain medication should be documented to facilitate communication between health care providers, therefore to maximise effective pain management strategies (Lewis, 2014). The use of non-pharmacological therapy for pain is also recommended to Mrs R because it helps reduce the dose of an analgesic/opiod required to control pain and helps to minimize analgesic side effects, and also promote the release of endorphins which inhibit pain signals (NCBI, 2010). Mrs R is encouraged to use distraction such as watching TV, listening to the radio/music, which redirect the attention on something and away of the pain. Imagery can also be proposed to divert the focus away from the pain by stimulating the client’s imagination to develop sensory images. Relaxation strategies can also be used to help Mrs R to be free of her anxiety and stress, and to reduce muscle tension (Lewis,

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

In the United States alone it has been estimated that nearly 50 million people suffer from chronic pain. However, chronic pain continues to be undermanaged with as many as 41% of patients reporting uncontrolled pain 1. Poor pain management outcomes are due in large part to a lack of a pharmacological intervention that is both efficacious for moderate-to-severe chronic pain and widely tolerable. Currently, the most efficacious treatment for moderate-to-severe chronic pain is the use of opioid agonists. Despite the efficacy of opioid therapy, in one survey 68% of physicians cited concerns about adverse events as a barrier to prescription of opioids for the maintenance of chronic pain1. Systemically delivered opioid agonists

Multimodal intervention along with attentive care and patient participation is necessary to achieve a balance between analgesia and side effects. Assumptions to the conceptual framework must be identified to understand the specific relevance of the theory to pain

Pain perception consists of more than mere sensation. Researcher’s interest has been held in the task of determining what components form a patient’s experience of pain. The perception to this particular stimuli has a strong psychological contribution where both affective and evaluative components hold emphasis as some of the main predictors in a given pain signal. Production and transmission of pain signals in addition, also contribute to an individual’s experience with pain (Patterson & Ptacek, 1997).

The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage” (1979). Pain is actually the culprit behind warranting a visit to a physician office for many people (Besson, 1999). Notoriously unpleasant, pain could also pose a threat as both a psychological and economic burden (Phillips, 2006). Sometimes pain does happen without any damage of tissue or any likely diseased state. The reasons for such pain are poorly understood and the term used to describe such type of pain is “psychogenic pain”. Also, the loss of productivity and daily activity due to pain is also significant. Pain engulfs a trillion dollars of GDP for lost work time and disability payments (Melnikova, 2010). Untreated pain not only impacts a person suffering from pain but also impacts their whole family. A person’s quality of life is negatively impacted by pain and it diminishes their ability to concentrate, work, exercise, socialize, perform daily routines, and sleep. All of these negative impacts ultimately lead to much more severe behavioral effects such as depression, aggression, mood alterations, isolation, and loss of self-esteem, which pose a great threat to human society.

Engwall (2009) defined pain as a "symptom and a warning that something is wrong in an organism” (p 370). Rathmell et al., (2006) maintained that fear of uncontrolled pain can be a traumatic situation for a patient undergoing surgery. Moreover, Pellino, et al (2005) sustained that “pain is a multidimensional experience, consisting of not only physical stimuli but also psychological interpretations of pain” (p. 182). Alleviating peri-operative pain is traditionally achieved with the use of pharmacological interventions. analgesia can incur undesirable side-effects like drowsiness, nausea and vomiting. Controlling the pain by complimenting analgesics with the use of non-pharmacological interventions, might ameliorate patients’ response to pain with fewer resultant side-effects. Thus, the need to evaluate the effect of non-pharmacological measures such as music, relaxation, hypnosis and others is highly solicited in the evolving heath system (Pyati & Gan, 2007).

Seeing is believing, these words are the best combination to understand the meaning of Virtual Reality (VR). VR is one of the best asset and aspect of our future. No other technology has seen such a revolution like VR has. It is practically in use in almost every field such as entertainment, gaming, defense, robotics, medical, healthcare, military, education, fashion, heritage, business, engineering and many more fields. VR sometimes called Virtual Environment has drawn much attention in the last two decade. Extensive media coverage causes the much more rapid increase in the interest of the masses. Very few people, however, really know what VR is and what are its open problems are. In this report a historical overview of virtual reality is presented, basic terminology as an introduction are listed, followed by applications of this technology in science, work, and entertainment areas. Its present developments are thoroughly discussed in this report. Finally, the future of VR is considered in two aspects: technological and social. New research directions, technological frontiers and potential applications are pointed out. The possible positive and negative influence of VR on life of average people is speculated.