Use of Virtual Reality in Pain Management - Is It Snake Oil or Promising?

Course Information

This session from the Canadian Physiotherapy Association (CPA) Congress 2021 provides an introduction to types of virtual reality (VR) systems. A review of VR research for the management of pain conditions is shared, and a case study of a successful use of VR for the management of pain is illustrated. The need for critical thinking in its prescription, as well as potential pitfalls, is presented.

Speakers

Janet Holly has 29 years in the management of complex pain (including specialized populations such as mTBI and pain; PTSD and pain) at the Ottawa Hospital as a Senior Physiotherapist. Her research interests as a clinician researcher include the use of virtual reality as a treatment modality for complex regional pain syndrome, as well as using machine learning to investigate sympathetic activation in PTSD, chronic pain, and mTBI. She is a clinical specialist in pain science, who informally mentors clinicians within her LIHN on complex pain, and is a clinician supervisor for physiotherapy students. She teaches nationally on complex pain. A recently completed project which she was a part of was the Alberta Physiotherapy Association and College's Chronic Pain Toolkit.

Courtney Bridgewater is the Rehabilitation Engineer at the Ottawa Hospital Rehabilitation Virtual Reality Laboratory. She is the RVR Operator. In that role, she has been involved in clinical care, as well as virtual reality research, for amputees, concussions, and big data analytics for the identification of the sympathetic activity across a variety of diagnoses. She has a Bachelor of Engineering, as well as a Masters of Science. In her spare time, she loves to teach dance.

Access to this recording will be FREE for anyone who has registered for CPA Congress 2021, Day 1.

Check your emails for the coupon code. If you have not received this contact pd@physiotherapy.ca