Published July 10, 2020 | Version Accepted pre-print
Conference paper Open

Sampling Electrocardiography Confirmation for a Virtual Reality Pain Management tool

  • 1. University of Kent, Department of Engineering and Digital Arts, Kent, United Kingdom
  • 2. University of Kent, Endurance Research Group, Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences, Canterbury, United Kingdom
  • 3. Research centre on Interactive media, Smart systems and Emerging Technologies, Nicosia, Cyprus and University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

Description

Previous research has shown that Virtual Reality (VR) technology may provide an alternative solution to pain management for clinical applications based on some psychological intervention strategies. Additional research has suggested that Electrocardiography (ECG) can be an objective measure of pain, with evidence showing that as pain increases, ECG signals should also increase. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of VR on naturally occurring pain when no pharmacological analgesics nor psychological intervention strategies are applied. The above statement will be validated via physiological responses, such as ECG and a correlation between subjective and objective measurements of pain will be made. The findings of the present study extend our understanding of the physiological and psychological effects of VR, providing useful insights into the relationship of VR and the levels of pain and discomfort caused by an exhaustive single limb muscle contraction. The main conclusion reached is that the use of VR can reduce physiological and psychological responses associated with negative sensations. Specifically, the results suggested that VR technology can significantly reduce ECG by 6 bmp, and perceived pain and exertion up to 50%, it can also significantly increase pain tolerance up to three minutes, without the use of any pharmacological analgesics and psychological intervention strate-gies.

Notes

This work has been partly supported by the project that has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 739578 (RISE – Call: H2020-WIDESPREAD-01-2016-2017-TeamingPhase2) and the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy.

Files

Sampling Electrocardiography Conformation from VR pain management tool_PREPRINT.pdf

Additional details

Funding

RISE – Research Center on Interactive Media, Smart System and Emerging Technologies 739578
European Commission