Le Mans: cyber therapy to forget about pain

Summary

• A clinic in Le Mans tests virtual reality on its patients
• A patient from Le Mans talks about her cyber therapy experience
• Cyber ​​therapy with a future

According to anesthetists and pain specialists, the suffering is largely related to the stress and anxiety of the patient. Also, doctors want to test the contribution that virtual reality can make on patients' anxiety with, such as objective, to reduce their suffering while reducing the use of anesthesia and pharmacological products.

A clinic in Le Mans tests virtual reality on its patients

As part of the study carried out on more than a hundred patients, the Victor-Hugo clinic in Le Mans tested, on a first patient, virtual reality to divert pain. Jacqueline is a 64 year old woman who suffers from bone marrow cancer. She is forced to undergo, several times a year, punctures of the bone marrow. This medical intervention is particularly painful and dreaded.

Jacqueline, however, this time agreed to try cyber therapy in addition to a small local anesthesia. The patient therefore put on a Gear VR virtual reality headset containing an application specifically developed for the study before the doctor performed the bone marrow puncture and the result is very encouraging.

A patient from Le Mans talks about her cyber therapy experience

Jacqueline assures us that the virtual reality headset solution combined with a little local anesthesia has been very effective. The patient explains that she only felt a "" when the doctor inserted the needle. But her immersive dive into a dreamlike universe totally relaxed her and diverted her from the pain.

Jacqueline testifies: "".

Cyber ​​therapy with a future

For Katell Le Du, the hematologist at the Le Mans clinic, the explanation is simple: "". The doctor explains that the study is being carried out jointly in Le Mans but also in Bordeaux, Dijon and Strasbourg before adding: "".

This first experience is only one of the possible applications of virtual reality to the aid of medicine. Many other tests have been successfully carried out in various fields such as the management of phobias or the treatment of post-traumatic symptoms, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, addictions, etc.