Children with Burns: How Virtual Reality Can Help Reduce Pain

If you’ve ever heard of virtual reality (VR), you may wonder what else it can be used for besides video games. Virtual reality refers to computer-generated games or tests where people can interact with an artificial environment using electronic devices like goggles. In the case of children with burn injuries, a team of researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital recently discovered that it has positive effects by reducing pain. 

Burn injuries affect approximately 250,000 children in the United States each year. The pain associated with burns is long-lasting, particularly during dressing changes. Given the current opioid crisis in our nation, our team set out to find an alternative to giving children pain medication. 

Between December 2016 and January 2019, we put 90 children, aged 6 to 17 years and receiving outpatient care for mostly second-degree burns, into three groups: active VR, passive VR and standard care (where they did not use VR, but used everyday toys or an iPad). 

Patients in the active VR group played a game using a smartphone and headset while having their burn dressings changed. The game, “Virtual River Cruise,” lasted about six minutes, the same amount of time it takes to change burn dressings. The game was designed by the Research Information Solutions and Innovation department at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. The game features a cold, snowy environment to help distract patients from thinking about their burns. Patients in the passive VR group only watched the game. 

Patients and their caregivers in all three groups completed a survey after the child’s dressings were changed. Among the three groups, patients in the active VR group had the lowest overall pain scores. 

So, what’s next? Now that the game has proven useful in reducing pain scores in children receiving outpatient care, we are studying how effective it is in helping children as they have their dressings changed at home.