Future directions
chronic pain, pain
CHRONIC PAIN, PHANTOM LIMB PAIN, PHANTOM LIMB
In addition to using VR for short term distraction from acute pain, there is growing interest in whether immersive virtual reality and/or augmented reality can be used to help reduce chronic pain, e.g., phantom limb pain or back painThere is some evidence that for some chronic pain patients (e.g., some phantom limb patients), VR therapy involving illusory embodiment of avatars may help reduce persistent pain, and may help normalize maladaptive pathological distortions of the patient’s homunculus in a subset of patients treated