Research Team
- Dr. Wadee Al-Halabi, Computer Science Department, Effat University
- Dr. Hunter Hoffman, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle
Project Summary
Pain during severe burn wound debridement involves removing the bandages and cleaning dead skin away from the healing burn wound. Although repeated bandage changes and wound cleaning is crucial for avoiding infections, burn wound debridement is one of the most painful procedures in medicine, despite use of powerful narcotic pain medications, and burned children are especially vulnerable. Virtual reality distraction is a promising new non-pharmacologic technique that can be used in addition to traditional pain medications. The researchers are working on building a new version of VR pain distraction software, Snow Canyon, which can either be played in single player mode or in multi-player mode.
