Following the example of research done at the University of Colorado, Virtual Reality headsets have been adopted in a German hospital as a method of reducing patients’ anxiety during medical procedures.
After a successful trial period at a hospital in Bavaria, doctors are trialling the use of VR headsets in the hope that the distraction will minimise patients’ anxiety while they are having an operation that uses local anaesthetic.
Doctors believe that if patients are anxious or scared during minor operations which require local anaesthetic, the VR headset will help to calm them. With the headset they would be able to move between different virtual rooms while they were being operated on. Patients at Fichtelgebirge, the hospital in Bavaria, also have the option to watch films, concerts and series for children, or listen to music.
The calming method was first trialled and then adopted after research at the University of Colorado found that using VR headsets to distract patients during hand surgery could mean that they would not have to receive as much medication to sedate them, which can be dangerous.
When patients have a small operation they are given a local anaesthetic which numbs the nerves around the area which is being operated on. On top of this, sedatives are sometimes used to send the patient into a drowsy state and reduce the risk of panic setting in at a crucial moment.
However, sedatives do come with risks, especially for elderly or infirm people. They can slow down breathing, reduce body temperature and lower blood pressure. If the dosage is too high, it is also possible that sedatives trigger respiratory arrest. It is for these reasons that doctors hope to make the transition to VR-calming. For now however, the sedatives will remain commonplace, particularly in preparation for general anaesthetic.
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