Could virtual reality act as an adjunctive analgesic during routine surgical procedures? A team of orthopedic surgeons out of Melbourne, Australia recently published their findings in a study that explores the feasibility of doing just that.In this pilot study, 9 patients underwent immersive virtual reality with their standard sedation in addition to regular regional anesthesia and were compared to a control group of another 10 patients who underwent standard regional anesthesia with sedation alone (neither group had general anesthesia).Outcome measures included patient tolerance, patient satisfaction in sedation, amount of propofol used, and feasibility of use of VR in the operating room. The surgeries performed were standard Orthopedic operations, primarily hip and knee replacements, but also some ankle surgeries. The virtual-reality simulation used was modeled after the popular Snow World that came out of University of Washington for burn injury pain relief.

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