Virtual Reality Hand Therapy: A new tool for non-opioid analgesia for acute procedural pain, hand rehabilitation, and VR embodiment therapy for phantom limb pain

Affordable virtual reality technology is now widely available. Billions of dollars are currently being invested into improving and mass producing virtual reality and augmented reality products. Consumer ready immersive virtual reality and augmented reality technologies may help maximize the medical outcome of patients undergoing hand therapy. Being in VR helps reduce the patients’ pain, making it less painful for patients to move their hand/fingers during hand therapy, and gamified virtual reality can help motivate the patient to perform therapeutic hand exercises, and make hand therapy more fun. In addition, VR may be used to help monitor how well patients are doing their hand therapy exercises, and to quantify whether adherence to treatment increases long term functionality. Additional research and development into using virtual reality as a tool for hand therapist is recommended for both acute pain and persistent pain patient populations.