On April 29th Jane Brody of the New York Times wrote a piece titled Virtual Reality as Therapy for Pain.
“It’s not just a distraction — it’s like an endogenous narcotic providing a physiological and chemical burst that causes you to feel good,” said Jeffrey I. Gold, director of the pediatric pain management clinic at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Unlike listening to music or watching television, virtual reality “immerses the patient in an entertaining, relaxing, interactive environment that so occupies the brain, it has no room to process pain sensations at the same time.”