Mexican Surgeon Uses VR Headset To Distract Patients During Surgery (bbc.com) 115
dryriver writes: The BBC has a longish story on a Mexican surgeon who makes his patients wear a VR headset that distracts them from the surgical procedure being performed on them. While Dr Mosso cuts and removes and stitches, the patient flies through a 3D VR re-creation of Machu Picchu or other fantastical places, oblivious to being in an otherwise -- for many patients -- stress inducing surgical setting. This removes the need to give patients powerful sedatives or painkillers to keep them calm and prevent their blood pressure from fluctuating. The surgeon only anesthetizes the part of the body where the surgery is performed, while the patient is absorbed in colorful and immersive VR worlds. An excerpt from the report: "The surgeon makes his first cut and blood spills down Ana's leg. She's surrounded by medical equipment -- stools, trolleys, swabs, syringes -- with super-bright surgical lamps suspended above the bed. Her vital signs are displayed on monitors just behind. But Ana is oblivious. She's immersed in a three-dimensional re-creation of Machu Picchu. She begins her journey with a breathtaking aerial view of the ancient city clinging to the mountainside, before swooping down to explore the details of stepped terraces, moss-covered walls and tiny stone huts. Mosso watches her carefully. A 54-year-old surgeon at Panamerican University in Mexico City, he's on a mission to bring virtual reality into the operating room. Mosso is using VR as a high-tech distraction technique, allowing surgeons to carry out operations that would normally require powerful painkillers and sedatives, with nothing more than local anaesthetic. He's trying to prove that reducing drug doses in this way not only slashes costs for Mexico's cash-strapped hospitals, but cuts complications and recovery times for patients too."
Re:Sure. (Score:5, Insightful)
You might not forget, but it plus the local anesthetic makes it easy to ignore.
Re:Sure. (Score:5, Interesting)
You might not forget, but it plus the local anesthetic makes it easy to ignore.
You can definitely ignore it.
After one of my many Hockey accidents, I had to get a bunch of metal put into my lower leg and near my ankle. During prep for surgery, they gave me a nice shot of "I don't give a damn". It wasn't a pain killer, but I gotta tell ya, I was one unconcerned person. With that, and a spinal tap. I was awake for the whole procedure. A little foggy, but I was conversing the whole time with the surgeons.
It was actually kinda cool, because I had questions about the various machinery they were using. They told the wife I must either be a scientist or an engineer for all my yapping. Regardless, without the shot of happy juice, I wouldn't have had such an enjoyable experience. Wish I knew what it was.
But if we want to talk about the Icewater boot on me that sprung a leak in the middle of the night, and dumped a few gallons of really cold water on the family jewels - that part of the hospital visit sucked.
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You might not forget, but it plus the local anesthetic makes it easy to ignore.
You can definitely ignore it.
After one of my many Hockey accidents, I had to get a bunch of metal put into my lower leg and near my ankle. During prep for surgery, they gave me a nice shot of "I don't give a damn". It wasn't a pain killer, but I gotta tell ya, I was one unconcerned person. With that, and a spinal tap. I was awake for the whole procedure. A little foggy, but I was conversing the whole time with the surgeons.
It was actually kinda cool, because I had questions about the various machinery they were using. They told the wife I must either be a scientist or an engineer for all my yapping. Regardless, without the shot of happy juice, I wouldn't have had such an enjoyable experience. Wish I knew what it was.
Morphine or another strong opiods, That's what they do that make them valuable dispite being addictive. They make you not care about pain or unpleasant things. It is also why they are still used in caugh syrup. It is much better at making you ignore tickling or soreness in the throat than any other medication.
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Morphine or another strong opiods, That's what they do that make them valuable dispite being addictive. They make you not care about pain or unpleasant things.
Not in this case at least. Opioids and I don't get along well, they dull the pain a little, then a momentary rush of euphoria, followed immediately by the room taking a 90 degree shift, and me breaking out in a sweat and puking.
Not certain why, but I'd be the last person to develop a opiate addiction.
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Morphine or another strong opiods, That's what they do that make them valuable dispite being addictive. They make you not care about pain or unpleasant things.
Not in this case at least. Opioids and I don't get along well, they dull the pain a little, then a momentary rush of euphoria, followed immediately by the room taking a 90 degree shift, and me breaking out in a sweat and puking.
Sounds like my reaction. If your body reacts like mine, you could have been given Ambian or another hypnotica sleep-medication. If it fails to work on me, it just makes me chatty and weird instead. I know in one procedure where they gave me something to drift of shortly, it didn't work but instead made me curios about what was going on and very chatty.
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Morphine or another strong opiods, That's what they do that make them valuable dispite being addictive. They make you not care about pain or unpleasant things.
Not in this case at least. Opioids and I don't get along well, they dull the pain a little, then a momentary rush of euphoria, followed immediately by the room taking a 90 degree shift, and me breaking out in a sweat and puking.
Not certain why, but I'd be the last person to develop a opiate addiction.
Hmm, could be liver failure.
Considering that the operation was in 1996, I'd dead by now.
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The prevalence of opiate addiction in the US is absolutely no justification for the pressure on doctors not to prescribe opiates. The drugs meant to replace opiates are fine supplements but worthless as replacements. It's sad there are addicts in the world and it is a real medical problem, we shouldn't deny even one person who an opiate would be marginally more effective at managing their pain that opiate to reduce the number of addicts. Especially because those measures don't work.
Which by the way, brings up one of the major failures of the war on drugs. Opiates. Many of the people who are now hooked on heroin, were once vicodin et al patients. So they get cut off from relatively benign drugs (the acetaminophen in Vicodin is more harmful) and turn to cheaper and illegal heroin. It's not the only group of course. But if people are using something like vicodin for a long time, th euse needs monitored and a withdrawal program needs to start.
One ting is for certain, there are two group
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Read a history of opium and it's an expensive drug to produce by hand without technology. The reason it's been around for so long is because it actually works on many used-to-be-common diseases such as TB. With the rise of new anitbiotic-resistant superbugs, perhaps a resurgence in opium is to be expected.
On a political note, I wonder how much money Afghanistan could make if opium were legal and they were all
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Not necessarily. We say "addicted" like it is this terrible and harmful thing that must be stopped at all costs. Everyone is addicted to sugar, most are addicted to caffeine, a huge portion of your insurance rates are because of people addicted to the endorphins your body generates in response to exercise.
Someone who takes Vicodine for a long time will be physically addicted to i
Re: Sure. (Score:1)
I could certainly use some shots of this so called "I don't give a damn" for my day job. That prescription seems about right and not too strong like the "I don't give a single flying fuck" that I think others have taken instead.
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I went to the ER once with what was probably a pinched nerve. I was having a pain that, at that time, was the worst pain I'd ever felt in my life. After the ER finally decided I wasn't a drug seeker they gave me a shot of something. I remember laughing out loud and telling my wife that it didn't do a thing for the pain because I could tell it was a bad as it ever was but I just didn't care any more. It was awesome.
Ahh - good times! 8^)
I know for the short time I had the burst of euphoria before geiing ill, it felt damn good.
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Sorry for the old article, but worth considering.
http://healthland.time.com/201... [time.com]
Everyone is different (Score:2)
I've watched myself be cut open once and stitched up 7 times, always with a keen sense of curiosity and interest. It's never freaked me out in the slightest, probably the same reason I've needed to be patched up so much. Well, the one time I was only getting five stitches and the ER was really busy so I got left for an hour and a half after being anesthetized, the doctor said to just suck it up even though it had basically worn off.
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I've watched myself be cut open once and stitched up 7 times
Do you work as a bouncer in a road house, or are you just a mean drunk?
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His name is burt and he has halitosis. Guys just instinctively want to beat him up.
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I've watched myself be cut open once and stitched up 7 times
Do you work as a bouncer in a road house, or are you just a mean drunk?
My guess would be some sort of high risk hobby like skateboarding, motorcross, or MMA cage fighting.
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Hockey player.
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I would probably be less comfortable with a vr headset on. I've watched myself be cut open once and stitched up 7 times, always with a keen sense of curiosity and interest. It's never freaked me out in the slightest, probably the same reason I've needed to be patched up so much. Well, the one time I was only getting five stitches and the ER was really busy so I got left for an hour and a half after being anesthetized, the doctor said to just suck it up even though it had basically worn off.
I thought I was going to be the only one who was more curious than freaked out. The one time I had a more major operation I was asked, and I said I damn well wanted to be awake. So a happy shot and spinal, and I bugged the surgeons the whole time. I don't think they are used to their patients carrying on conversations with them.
Re:Everyone is different (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I'm on the fence about getting knocked out for surgery.
On the one hand I'm not squeamish, and find it interesting to watch them work.
On the other hand, if the doc is doing something delicate I'd just as soon there not be some doped-up engineer in the room distracting them while they work.
Re:Everyone is different (Score:4, Interesting)
My wife broke her arm four or five years ago after tripping over the cat (cats are Satan's minions, I tell you), and she watched me do her nerve block under ultrasound. She (neurologist) thought that was pretty cool. But that was for post-op pain relief, not for the surgery - she was under general anesthesia during the case. Side note: if offered a nerve block, take it. A former partner in my group broke his ankle some years back and used to call one of his friends to come do a nerve block every afternoon so that he could sleep all night without pain. If I had been able to get one of the ultrasound machines home when my wife broke her arm, I'd have done the same.
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For C-sections, they will put a mirror up over the drape, if the mother wants to watch.
My wife watched, I didn't.
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My wife was a nurse. She wanted to see everything. Me? Not so much.
And with our first, I didn't have time to get dressed and in the delivery room anyways... Baby went into distress and... WHOOSH ... out of the labor room in into the delivery room for an emergency section. She was pissed that they didn't have time to put up the mirror.
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There are always several med students who pass out during their first surgical rotation, even though they've all been through the process of carving up an entire human during gross anatomy.
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Heck, it was so fast, it was over before I even finished gowning up.
For our second, there was time for the mirror. I just didn't look.
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If it's anything like my experiences, local anesthetic removes the feeling of pain, but doesn't remove sensation entirely, so you can still feel what the doctor is doing somewhat. Normally your only options are to either watch what they are doing, or close your eyes and try to ignore it all (or the more dangerous 3rd option, sleep through it via general anesthetic). VR fits into the second category, by both blocking hearing and vision, and by making it far easier to ignore everything going on in the outside
Substitute "Acupuncture" for "VR" (Score:2)
I'm old enough to remember when acupuncture was brought in for basically all the reasons listed in TFA. Same hype, same claimed benefits and successes.
Maybe there's something to the idea of distracting the brain to reduce the need for anesthetic during surgery, but it's been 40+ years since the first "breakthroughs" using acupuncture and how many surgeons today are using acupuncture during various procedures to eliminate the need for anesthetics?
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VR is there to keep the patient distracted from the small amount of pulling/tugging sensation that is left over after the anesthetic kicks in.
It's meant to treat the mental pain of being cut-into while still awake.
I could have used this ... (Score:2, Redundant)
... when I got my vasectomy.
Guys at work had been pulling on surgical tubing all week, making my nuts draw up into my jaw.
The doctor put me on a slab with a curtain blocking my view of him. All I could think of was that damned surgical tubing and suddenly ... ... it was a warm, sunny day and I was opening a gate of a picket fence and I was feeling very glad to be going into a cottage where my wide was waiting.
When I came to, the slab was tilted where my head was near the floor and my feet were way up.
The do
Re:I could have used this ... (Score:4, Funny)
So, this idea would have been really helpful, especially if the VR was porn and stuff.
I'm pretty sure porn is the one thing you don't want to watch while getting a vasectomy. (Maybe the other would be botched vasectomy surgeries)
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I'm from Texas.
"Porn," in this context, would have been a soothing VR experience of a tin roof and porn down rain.
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I'm from Texas.
"Porn," in this context, would have been a soothing VR experience of a tin roof and porn down rain.
If you say so. Though from my understanding golden showers were more of interest to (certain) New Yorkers...
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Wow, what a fucking wimp. Tell me again about your problems when you have a doctor putting a chest tube in you with only local. Now that, that will make you freak out.
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... when I got my vasectomy.
Why bother with a vasectomy
Now that AIDS and hep c can be treated, a bastard child that knocks at your door twenty years down the road is the only risk in bareback sex with a prostitute or intern. Vasectomy solves that.
Re:Cheap Bastard (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of people die because of miscalculated anesthesia. Not a lot of people die of bad VR.
Resident Evil 7 (Score:1)
A lot of people die because of miscalculated anesthesia. Not a lot of people die of bad VR.
Then they haven't tried the VR version of Resident Evil 7 yet.
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A lot of people die because of miscalculated anesthesia. Not a lot of people die of bad VR.
Have you never seen The Lawnmower Man? ;)
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I don't often do it, but I have on occasion told people that there was a substantial risk of death during surgery. They went ahead because, well, the risk of death without surgery was even bigger.
Anesthesia isn't really about calculation
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A Cuban medical degree is accepted in many countries (but not the US). Cuban doctors are highly sought-after all over the world.
Great idea (Score:1)
Look, think about if you were at the dentist. All you have to do is keep your mouth open, right? Watching some stuff on a vr headset would be great. The dentist needs the bright light above you so he can't just suspend a TV (plus you could still see the distractions) but a vr headset isolates the view.
I think it's genius.
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I think it's genius.
The guy is being at best inventive or resourceful. Sagacious would also be acceptable. Genius? No. Maybe you need to re-calibrate your sense of amazement.
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It's not exactly a new idea, people have been doing that since the 90's. Selling VR headsets to dentists was one of the way VR companies kept themselves afloat after the consumer market couldn't really get any traction.
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Look, think about if you were at the dentist. All you have to do is keep your mouth open, right? Watching some stuff on a vr headset would be great. The dentist needs the bright light above you so he can't just suspend a TV (plus you could still see the distractions) but a vr headset isolates the view.
I think it's genius.
Well, actually, at the kids' dentist, they DO have a tv suspended above the chair, playing disney movies.
What about nausea? (Score:5, Informative)
Many people get motion sickness when in a VR with a moving viewpoint. Having your patient suddenly sit up and vomit would probably not be a good idea during surgery. The simplest solution would probably be to test them on the VR first to see if they are nausea-prone, and choose the surgery VR experience based on that.
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Given that the patient is "watched carefully", I'm guessing this is one of the things that they're looking for. You'll also notice that a relatively benign VR program was chosen - not a virtual rollercoaster ride, for instance.
They're in a hospital, so I'd imagine they have access to some reasonably effective anti-nausea medicine, even if the patient is slightly prone to that. Anecdotally, I've heard that most people don't seem to suffer from motion sickness, so it still seems worthwhile even if you have
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Motion sickness tends not to happen if you carefully limit the VR experience. Stationary camera, or one that only moves slowly in one direction like a TV camera on rails. It's the disassociation between the body's sense of acceleration and what the eyes are seeing that causes problems, so if there is no acceleration (i.e. change of direction) in the VR sim it's usually fine.
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If you get nausea simply focus on the pain
I Wanna Watch (Score:2)
Distractions? H no, if its not such a big deal as to require a general anesthetic, then I want to watch in as much detail as possible. Open heart surgery or maybe a prostatectomy? Nope, too big a deal, and would trigger unhelpful actions if they went wrong 'cuz that'd scare me, but, say, surgery to repair broken bones, or remove something not in vital organ areas, yeah, I wanna see...
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remove something not in vital organ areas, yeah, I wanna see...
I would be curious to see your Youtube history.
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If you have adverse reactions to anesthesia, then maybe this isn't a good idea for you. But what does that have to do with the other 90% of the population?
high tech mind tricks (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice for those hospitals who can afford high tech entertainment devices and the attendant communication systems required. Could be iffy though if there is a bad connection.
There is a better way to 'distract' the patient. Hypnosis. It's free aside from the need for a skilled operator. No equipment or communication devices required. The operator doesn't even have to be present in the arena.
Not only can hypnosis distract the patient, it can allow the patient to participate in the procedure. Being fully aware, the patient can move muscles, control blood flow and report to the surgeon various sensations.
Countless births and surgical operations have been enhanced with hypnosis. I personally had three teeth pulled with only a mild hypnotic sedation. There was no pain, no bleeding at the time or after although I was fully aware of the crunching of bone during the extraction and the vigorous muscle applied to get those molars out. I spit chunks of bone for several days after.
Hypnosis is associated with magic in the uneducated mind. It's a shame. There is no more natural way to be in tune and in control of our bodies and minds.
Re:high tech mind tricks (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice for those hospitals who can afford high tech entertainment devices and the attendant communication systems required. Could be iffy though if there is a bad connection.
Right. I am a Mexican. I laughed when I read the summary's Mexico's cash-strapped hospitals (copied straight from TFA)... Yes, our public health care system is cash-strapped. Our private hospitals? I don't think a first-world hospital has much to offer than what we do here. Although the article mentions very poor regions in Guerrero state (South), I really doubt the described case happened there.
Not only can hypnosis distract the patient, it can allow the patient to participate in the procedure. Being fully aware, the patient can move muscles, control blood flow and report to the surgeon various sensations.
Ugh. By far, not my cup of tea.
I personally had three teeth pulled with only a mild hypnotic sedation. There was no pain, no bleeding at the time or after although I was fully aware of the crunching of bone during the extraction and the vigorous muscle applied to get those molars out. I spit chunks of bone for several days after.
You should change your dental specialist. I have a molar pulled out. A mild shot of local anesthesia, and I was completely aware of everything happening throughout the procedure. Yes, the crunching during extraction is... Quite impressive. But the tooth goes out easily. I had a swollen gum for some days, no t a single residual piece of tooth.
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Right. I am a Mexican. I laughed when I read the summary's Mexico's cash-strapped hospitals (copied straight from TFA)... Yes, our public health care system is cash-strapped. Our private hospitals? I don't think a first-world hospital has much to offer than what we do here. Although the article mentions very poor regions in Guerrero state (South), I really doubt the described case happened there.
This says a lot about the state of the health care system in the USA, but as a US citizen who has traveled to Mexico for medical care at a private hospital, I can say that the quality of care and the cost were far better than what we could get here in the states. My wife and I traveled to Mexicali to have an elective surgery performed by a doctor who was one of the top surgeons in the world for this particular procedure, and the cost of flights, hotels, a "mini vacation" in Baja California, plus the hospita
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Nice for those hospitals who can afford high tech entertainment devices and the attendant communication systems required.
According to the article, one of the benefits of the VR is that it is cheaper than the additional drugs that would have to be given without it. i.e. you buy one Gear VR and keep using indefinitely, rather than having to buy more sedatives for every patient.
As for hypnosis, the requirement for a skilled operator is the catch. How many doctors are also sufficiently good at hypnosis that they could rely on it to sedate a patient?
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Why would you expect the doctor to be good at hypnosis? You'd want to bring in a good hypnotist, just like you currently bring in a good anesthesiologist. It's a good bet the hypnotist is a lot cheaper, and is far less likely to kill the patient if they screw up.
VR though would be radically cheaper even than that. $2000 would get you considerably better equipment than you need, which over the course of a year that would probably work out to roughly $0 per patient.
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I personally had three teeth pulled with only a mild hypnotic sedation.
No local anesthetic?
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Actually, that's pretty much backwards: 'Another name for distraction is hypnosis' [psychologytoday.com].
Nothing empirically special can be found to identify hypnosis. Indeed, from the above article:
So, a therapist calling VR "hypnotherapy" meets the goal simply by naming it so. But, I agree
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Bullshit. I don't believe it. I just simply cannot believe that another person can TALK to you in a certain way and completely change your state of consciousness. I refuse, absolutely refuse, to believe that it's any more than quackery that people will believe because they really, really want to believe it.
Close minded I may be, but I'm not easily fooled either.
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Just ask the patient what he wants to see?
Could be worse... (Score:2, Insightful)
At least the title isn't:
"US President uses Mexicans to distract populace during $hit$how."
Same thing over here. (Score:4, Interesting)
I used to go to a dentist who offered patients those stupid Sony TV glasses where you could watch a movie.
Actually, I really liked it.
Nitrovirutal Reality (Score:2)
It should be pretty easy to fit the VR headset to provide some nitrous oxide to augment the experience. Actually, and this feature could be great for non-medical VR applications, too...
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As long as it's not too funny (Score:2)
My dentist used to have a large cartoon poster stuck to the ceiling above the chair. That was a nice distraction, until I burst out laughing while having various dental tools in my mouth. After that, I closed my eyes instead.
Machu Picchu always reminds me... (Score:1)
I have to say... (Score:2)
I have to say... my surgeon wearing a VR headset during the surgery would distract the bejesus out of me, too!
Oh.
The patient wears it?
Never mind.
People already ignore surgery is going on for... (Score:2)
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Re: Yeah but it's Mexico... (Score:1)
Truth is treason in an empire of lies.