Noble Timothy, Boone Lyndon, El Helou Antonios
Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL, Canada.
Division of Neurosurgery, Horizon Health Network, Moncton, NB, Canada.
Front Pain Res (Lausanne). 2023 Feb 27;4:1094125. doi: 10.3389/fpain.2023.1094125. eCollection 2023.
Spinal cord stimulation and virtual reality therapy are established and promising techniques, respectively, for managing chronic pain, each with its unique advantages and challenges. While each therapy has been the subject of significant research interest, the prospect of combining the two modalities to offer a synergistic effect in chronic pain therapy is still in its infancy. In this narrative review, we assess the state of the field combining virtual reality as an adjunctive therapy to spinal cord stimulation in chronic pain. We also review the broader field of virtual reality therapy for acute and chronic pain, considering evidence related to feasibility in the Canadian healthcare system from cost and patient satisfaction perspectives. While early results show promise, there are unexplored aspects of spinal cord stimulation combined with virtual reality therapy, particularly long-term effects on analgesia, anxiolysis, and implications on the effectiveness and longevity of spinal cord stimulation. The infrastructure for billing virtual reality as a consult service or therapy must also catch up if it is eventually used to supplement spinal cord stimulation for chronic pain.
脊髓刺激和虚拟现实疗法分别是治疗慢性疼痛的成熟且有前景的技术，各自具有独特的优势和挑战。虽然每种疗法都受到了大量研究关注，但将这两种方式结合起来在慢性疼痛治疗中产生协同效应的前景仍处于起步阶段。在这篇叙述性综述中，我们评估了将虚拟现实作为脊髓刺激辅助疗法用于慢性疼痛治疗这一领域的现状。我们还回顾了虚拟现实疗法在急慢性疼痛治疗方面的更广泛领域，从成本和患者满意度角度考虑了与加拿大医疗保健系统可行性相关的证据。虽然早期结果显示出前景，但脊髓刺激与虚拟现实疗法相结合仍有未被探索的方面，特别是对镇痛、抗焦虑的长期影响以及对脊髓刺激有效性和持久性的影响。如果最终将虚拟现实用于补充脊髓刺激治疗慢性疼痛，将其作为咨询服务或疗法计费的基础设施也必须跟上。
