Virtual "SnowWorld" Helps Burn Victims Cope with Extreme Pain
From: R&D Magazine - 08/31/2017
By: Laura Panjwani

To combat the painful healing process for burn victims, researchers at
University of Washington Human Interface Technology Laboratory have developed
an immersive virtual reality (VR) experience designed specifically for burn
victims. The technology is currently being utilized at Harborview Burn
Center, Shriners Children’s Burn Center, as well as several other burn
centers and burn-focused research laboratories, and has been shown in
numerous research studies to reduce pain levels significantly.

The VR experience, known as SnowWorld, features a snowy scene where users
score points by throwing snowballs at snowmen, penguins, woolly mammoth, and
flying fish. To play the game, users point their head slightly in the
direction they want to throw a snowball and then press a button to launch it.

SnowWorld was designed around the concept of snow because cold and ice is the
antithesis to burning fire, said Hunter Hoffman, PhD one of the original
creators of SnowWorld.

Read the entire article at:
https://www.rdmag.com/article/2017/08/virtual-snowworld-helps-burn-victims-cope-extreme-pain

Links:
Hunter Hoffman
http://www.hitl.washington.edu/people/person.php?name=hunter

Virtual Reality Pain Reduction
http://www.vrpain.com
https://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/vrpain

Virtual reality as an adjunctive pain control during burn wound care in
  adolescent patients
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10692634

Factors influencing the efficacy of virtual reality distraction analgesia
  during postburn physical therapy: preliminary results from 3 ongoing studies
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18036981

Virtual reality pain control during burn wound debridement in the hydrotank
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18427228