{"id":390294,"date":"2026-04-09T18:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T18:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/390294\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T18:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T18:35:09","slug":"how-a-montreal-hospital-is-using-vr-and-music-to-transform-patient-care-montreal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/390294\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Montreal hospital is using VR and music to transform patient care &#8211; Montreal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ginette Thomas went to St. Mary\u2019s hospital on Wednesday for a routine doctor\u2019s appointment, but what she experienced went far beyond that.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Within seconds, she was somewhere else entirely \u2014 inside a fully immersive virtual reality concert.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s relaxing,\u201d said Thomas. \u201cIt makes you let go of everything and go somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The virtual reality concert project aims to demonstrate the potential \u2014 and benefits \u2014 of musical intervention in a health-care environment.<\/p>\n<p>Led by geriatrician and researcher, Dr. Julia Chabot, and featuring the work of internationally renowned Quebec pianist and composer Alexandra Str\u00e9liski, the project is meant to explore how immersive experiences and music can reduce stress, pain and improve emotional health.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/national.jpg\" alt=\"Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won't miss a trending story.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet breaking National news<\/p>\n<p>Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won&#8217;t miss a trending story.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe did a small pilot project with virtual reality concerts, before doing the one with Alexandra Str\u00e9liski, we did mini concerts to try it and see if it worked with our patients,\u201d said Chabot. \u201cAnd patients who received the virtual reality intervention as opposed to our control room reported less pain.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The heart of the experience is music designed to emotionally move patients, both emotionally and physically, out of their surroundings.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Canada<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt transports you for 10-15 minutes and that\u2019s really powerful, if you\u2019re in a hospital room or if you\u2019re in pain every day,\u201d she said. \u201cI think it can alleviate a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Chatbot hopes the project is just the tip of the iceberg.<\/p>\n<p>The goal is to expand the project throughout the entire hospital within the year and bring in more musicians, genres and, Chabot says, hopefully more hospitals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can prescribe medications to patients but there\u2019s nothing that I can give to patients that will have such an instant effect, that they\u2019ll say \u2018Wow, that made me feel really, really good,&#8217;\u201d said Chabot.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ginette Thomas went to St. Mary\u2019s hospital on Wednesday for a routine doctor\u2019s appointment, but what she experienced&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[289,61,60,173127,80,210,211,212],"class_list":{"0":"post-390294","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-virtual-reality","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-montreal-hospitals","12":"tag-technology","13":"tag-virtual-reality","14":"tag-virtualreality","15":"tag-vr"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390294","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=390294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}