Communications of the ACM
Virtual Reality as Therapy
Credit: Anna Stills
A child once described their complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) to Stanford University professor of anesthesiology Brenda Golianu as feeling like "an orchestra of pain." Typically the condition requires treatment with multiple therapies, including nerve blocks, ketamine infusions, medications, intensive physical therapy, and psychology. Golianu recalls one example of a 12-year-old girl suffering from CRPS of the lower-right leg; she walked only with a crutch. She had been given all the treatments described here, but Golianu and her colleagues added an additional element based around a virtual reality (VR) game.
The researchers were testing VR as a way to incentivize children to move and work through difficult but beneficial physical therapy exercises and drive significant rehabilitative progress. They designed a game, Fruity-Feet, specifically for pediatric rehabilitation. FruityFeet situates the player in a virtual farm and instructs them to smash digital fruits and vegetables as a timer runs down.
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