Evaluating the Impact of Immersive Virtual Reality in an Inpatient Rehabilitation Hospital.
Leffler, Anna.
2023-04-19
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This Doctoral Capstone project evaluated the feasibility of implementing immersive virtual reality (IVR) at the Encompass Rehabilitation Hospital of Braintree. The Encompass of Braintree is an acute rehab hospital that treats a variety of diagnoses and conditions with the most common being ortho, stroke, and TBI patients. A gap was identified at this site looking for new nonpharmaceutical based ... read moreinterventions to reduce pain and increase quality of life for patients. Prior research supports the idea that IVR can be successful at reducing pain in painful experiences like burn wound debridement (Phelan, et al., 2021) This project focused on the feasibility of using IVR at Encompass and included staff trainings, patient experiences with IVR, and material creation.
Current treatments for acute pain tend to involve the prescription of opioid drugs which can reduce pain, but are highly addictive substances can be abused easily, and have terrible side effects (Daoust, et al., 2020; Lloyd, et al., 2021; Pino & Wakeman, 2021) IVR provides the user with an immersive experience and can help to distract from pain. Patient experiences focused on addressing pain and looking for impacts on quality of life. Patients reported reductions in pain and positive experiences with the IVR indicating it may be a useful tool for therapists in this setting. Therapists reported seeing increases in function and participation from their patients during IVR. The results of this project support that it is feasible and beneficial for IVR to be used at this site with the diverse patient population.
Poster presented at the Tufts Graduate Student Council's 28th Graduate Student Research Symposium, April 19, 2023. 1st place winner.read less - Leffler, Anna. "Evaluating the Impact of Immersive Virtual Reality in an Inpatient Rehabilitation Hospital." Presentation at the 28th Graduate Research Symposium, Tufts University, April 19, 2023.
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