Immersive Virtual Reality to potentiate hypnosis: an innovative and powerful approach to support surgery
Background: Surgical patients frequently experience significant perioperative distress, with over 50% of hospitalized individuals reporting acute pain. Preoperative anxiety and intense postoperative pain are established risk factors for the development of chronic postsurgical pain, a phenomenon observed in orthopedic models such as total knee arthroplasty. While pharmacological analgesia remains the standard of care, its efficacy is often limited by adverse effects, financial costs, and the risk of dependency. Non-pharmacological interventions, specifically hypnosis, have demonstrated efficacy in modulating nociceptive processing but face implementation barriers, including the requirement for specialized clinician training and significant time investment.
Objective: This review evaluates the integration of immersive virtual reality (VR) with hypnotic techniques to manage perioperative anxiety and pain in surgical populations.
Key Points: VR facilitates high-level immersion through multisensory integration and sensorimotor correspondence, inducing a sense of presence that modulates cognitive perception. When combined with hypnosis, VR technology standardizes the delivery of therapeutic suggestions, reducing the cognitive load required for patients to achieve a dissociated state. Clinical applications include acute pain reduction during wound care, intravenous access, and orthopedic rehabilitation. The technology acts as an active distractor, potentially attenuating nociceptive stimuli via gate control mechanisms. However, limitations persist regarding technical complexity, equipment costs, and potential sensory dissonance in specific demographics, such as geriatric patients.
Conclusion: Virtual reality-assisted hypnosis represents a viable adjunctive strategy for mitigating perioperative distress. By automating hypnotic induction and enhancing patient immersion, this modality addresses traditional barriers to non-pharmacological pain management and may improve surgical outcomes through reduced stress-related complications.
