![\"Breda](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4927583_11_articleinline_Smileyscope_201_1_.jpg\" "\\"Breda")
Breda Reilly, staff nurse, paediatrics, at University Hospital Galway with \u00c9abha Sharkey from Tuam, using the Smileyscope headset.<\/p>\nVirtual reality has become part of how chronic pain is treated, including for patients in public hospitals in Limerick and Galway.<\/p>\n
At Croom Orthopaedic Hospital, specialist nurse Anna Marie Kiernan has combined a digital approach with a transdermal pain management chilli pepper derivative patch to help cancer patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese would be patients who\u2019ve had chemotherapy and have pain in their hands and feet after it; with diabetes or people who had shingles; people who have chronic regional pain syndrome,\u201d said Ms Kiernan.<\/p>\n
She starts with a treatment called qutenza. This, she said, is a patch that is created from a derivative of chilli pepper.<\/p>\n
When this is placed on the area in pain, chemicals are released which \u201ccause the nerve ending to retract and it takes 12 weeks for those nerve endings to grow back\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou hope these nerve endings grow back more normal every time you apply the patch,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
However, it is so potent that she wears a protective gown and mask, and it can only be applied for an hour every 12 weeks.<\/p>\n
People can find it \u201cquite hot and quite uncomfortable and sometimes painful\u201d, even though it helps in the long-term.<\/p>\n
The clinical nurse specialist in pain medicine tried different ways to distract patients, including ice-packs, music, or talking, to little avail.<\/p>\n
Digital options, including virtual reality \u2014 the user wears a headset and nothing they see is real \u2014 or augmented reality \u2014the user sees digital content laid on reality, similar to Snapchat filters \u2014 were her next thought.<\/p>\n
Ms Kiernan opted for the latter, and was supported to buy headsets and a separate platform, sometimes used with stroke patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor those who used the headsets, within 15 minutes, their pain scores reduced to about 2.8 out of 10. That is a dramatic reduction,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n Often people didn\u2019t even realise their treatment was complete when I went to take the headset off. I had to fight people nearly to get the headset off them.\n <\/p>\n
When people were not worried about pain, she could better see how well they could move and other measurements.<\/p>\n
The project, Patch Me If You Can\/Virtually Pain Free, won the best use of innovative technology award at the HSE Spark Awards last year.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, at University Hospital Galway, virtual reality headsets are used in the children\u2019s unit to tackle anxiety or fear.<\/p>\n
Children using the Smileyscopes headsets can watch fish appearing to nibble their arm as a distraction from an arm injection, for example.<\/p>\n
It is also used during drawing blood and cannulations or for relaxation before operations, especially for children with disabilities.<\/p>\n
Breda Reilly, staff nurse, paediatrics, at University Hospital Galway with \u00c9abha Sharkey from Tuam, using the Smileyscope headset.<\/p>\n
One young patient, \u00c9abha Sharkey, has used it a couple of times.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pictures and videos it showed were colourful and fun,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\n I could see different smiley faces and fish close up, it made me feel like I was inside a video game.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cIt distracted me from the needle and the whole idea of getting my bloods taken, which made it easy to stay calm.\u201d<\/p>\n
The initiative is funded by the Galway Sick Kids Foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Virtual reality has become part of how chronic pain is treated, including for patients in public hospitals in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[11246,258,103,61,60],"class_list":["post-240538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-childrens-health","tag-cancer","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}