Write an article about
In the wake of the opioid addiction crisis that has cost greater than 500,000 U.S. lives, medical investigators have focused on finding latest methods to assist patients control pain. Brennan Spiegel, MD, director of Cedars-Sinai’s Health Services Research and a pioneer within the medical virtual reality field, spent a while with the Newsroom to clarify how virtual reality helps patients across the medical center.Â
Newsroom: Cedars-Sinai began experimenting with VR within the hospital setting just five years ago as a part of a limited study. Where can we stand now? How have we been using virtual reality within the hospital for the past few years?
Spiegel:Â Â Â Â In the past few years, we’ve got accomplished several hospital-wide studies on the usage of virtual reality. We accomplished three studies on using virtual reality to assist mitigate pain. Those studies involved greater than 300 patients and showed that VR works to cut back pain and will be used effectively to enrich traditional medicine.
Together with colleagues in our Obstetrics & Gynecology Department, we studied the usage of virtual reality during childbirth as a non-pharmaceutical approach to reducing the stress and pain of labor. One of our recent studies used virtual reality for youngsters undergoing infusions for inflammatory bowel disease.
Overall, virtual reality has been studied and now’s getting used in myriad ways across Cedars-Sinai. We created an internet site with details about our VR program at Cedars-Sinai, including links to our published research.Â
There at the moment are well over 5,000 published studies supporting different applications of VR. The FDA has acknowledged VR as a brand new field. It isn’t any longer a problem of whether using VR is scientifically valid, but whether we’re committed to using it in healthcare. Now we’ve got to reply the non-scientific query: Do we’ve got the essential resources to supply VR to our patients as a therapy alongside traditional medicine?Â
What does the longer term of VR seem like at Cedars-Sinai?
Our hope is to eventually establish a full-service clinical operation to support the uses of virtual reality in clinical practice, not only for pain but additionally for anxiety, depression and other conditions. We want to partner with Cedars-Sinai Cancer because patients undergoing cancer treatment experience not only pain, but often anxiety and depression as well. We are optimistic that VR will help in all of those areas. We are also working closely with the Cedars-Sinai Department of Psychiatry.
What VR-related research projects are underway now?
Currently there are several ongoing studies at Cedars-Sinai. Together with the Department of Orthopaedics, and because of a virtually $4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, we’re studying 360 patients with chronic lower back pain using three various kinds of VR. One group will receive distraction VR, corresponding to swimming with dolphins or lying on an immersive beach. A second group will receive VR with cognitive behavioral therapy featuring skills corresponding to biofeedback. The third kind of VR is what we call sham VR, where you watch videos within the VR headset but it surely’s not 360 degrees. The study will follow patients for as much as 90 days and monitor their pain outcomes, medication requirements and other necessary clinical advantages.
Your book VRx: How Virtual Therapeutics Will Revolutionize Medicine published this month. Tell us in regards to the book.
The book is just not written solely for medical colleagues. It is written for a lay audience with an interest in psychology and mind-body medicine. It is for the curious reader who’s enthusiastic about science. The book explores what we have learned from our patients, each at Cedars-Sinai and in studies done by researchers around the globe. I wrote the book to make clear the brand new field and tell the story of patients and researchers on the front lines of immersive therapeutics. The book explores what VR teaches us about our own consciousness. It brings together philosophy, psychology, technology and medicine.
Read more from Discoveries magazine: Innovation 10: The XR FilesÂ
Â
‘;
make it easy to read for teens.Organize the content with appropriate headings and subheadings (h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6) and made content unique. Include conclusion section and don’t include the title. it must return only article i dont want any extra information or introductory text with article e.g: ” Here is rewritten article:” or “Here is the rewritten content:”