A Pilot Study of Virtual Reality for the Treatment of Pediatric CRPS

• In Event: Health Technologies and Communication

Abstract

Immersive virtual reality allows people to inhabit avatar bodies that differ from their own, and this can produce significant psychological and physiological effects. We describe two pilot stud-ies that examined how four pediatric patients, all with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) of one leg, would tolerate three different virtual reality therapies over a course of six sessions. While our sample size was too small to determine treatments effects, participants com-pleted all sessions and both patients and parents were enthusiastic about the treatment. We dis-cuss different ways that we were able to track increased function both within and across sessions.

Authors

• Andrea Stevenson Won, Stanford U

• Chrstine Tataru, Stanford U

• Cristina Cojocaru, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital

• Jeremy N. Bailenson, Stanford U

• Sarah Niswonger, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital

• Eliot Krane, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital

• Brenda Golianu, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital