Virtual Reality Distraction for Anxiety Reduction During Trigger Points Procedures in Pain Medicine Clinic

University of California (UC) Davis

Status: Completed

Conditions: Pain Management

Treatments: Device: Virtual Reality headset

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03334929

1088873

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study aims to evaluate the effect of Virtual Reality (VR) as a distraction method to help those patients undergoing trigger points therapy to reduce anxiety and increase patient satisfaction. Half of the participants will wear VR gear, meanwhile the other half will be in control group, which will not wear VR headset, only the normal care.

Full description

trigger points can cause a wide range of pain symptoms; pain in the anterior shoulder and down the arm, headache pain, back pain, hip pain, knee pain, frozen shoulder pain, and other symptoms. Local anesthetic injections and lidocaine injections are common "wet" needling treatments for trigger points injections. The proposed mechanism by which trigger points injections alleviate pain is based on mechanical disruption of the taut bands of muscle with palpation based needling. During injections, patients may feel an intensified pain and a twitch response.

Distraction has been proved to be an effective tool in pain management, and it can also be used for a variety of medical procedures. By engaging in assigned tasks, pain and anxiety are assumed to be lessened throughout the procedure, while leaving patients less occupied by pain stimuli. . An immersive virtual environment may be preferable to medications such as sedatives, due to side effects and prolonged discharge from procedure suite. Occasionally, medications may not even be available in a busy interventional pain suite. At the UCD pain clinic, we do not offer sedating medications for bedside procedures like trigger point injections. By wearing VR headset, patients may feel less tense, anxious, and painful during trigger point injections.

Enrollment: 47 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Patients aged over 18 years old, who are referred to UC Davis Pain Medicine Clinic and are candidates for trigger point injections, are English speaking and can understand oral and written instructions

Exclusion criteria

• Patients who have high risk of motion sickness, seizure disorder, visual/hearing impairment, prisoners or are pregnant are not eligible for this study.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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47 participants in 2 patient groups

Virtual Reality intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will be wearing Virtual Reality headset called Oculus gear equipped with Samsung galaxy S7 during the trigger point injections. The VR app chosen is called Relax VR - Rest, Relaxation \& Meditation, which will provide a calm beach scene with waves and soothing musics.

Treatment:

Device: Virtual Reality headset

control

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants in this group will receive trigger point injections without any intervention. The trigger point injections will be performed in daily manner.