A deep dive from a pioneer of Virtual Medicine into the cutting edge of virtual reality (VR) and the study of its use and evidence for its applications in medicine.... from bringing on awe, to treating pain.

Filmed at NextMed Health (http://NextMed.Health): A program and community that brings together innovators from across the healthcare continuum to explore what's next and catalyze the future of health and medicine..

Dr. Brennan Spiegel is director of Health Services Research for Cedars-Sinai, and Director of the Cedars-Sinai Master's Degree Program in Health Delivery Science. He directs the Cedars-Sinai Center for Outcomes Research and Education (CS-CORE), a multidisciplinary team that investigates how digital health technologies, including wearable biosensors, smartphone applications, virtual reality (VR) and social media, can strengthen the patient-doctor bond, improve outcomes and save money.

Dr. Spiegel also chairs the Virtual Medicine conference. http://VirtualMedicine.org.
For decades, scientists have been quietly discovering the surprising health benefits of virtual reality (VR) for ailments ranging from burn injuries, to stroke, to PTSD, to schizophrenia. Over ten thousand studies reveal that VR has an uncanny ability to calm pain, steady nerves, and boost mental health. VR is helping to deliver babies, enabling soldiers to cope with the mental scars of war, and reminding doctors that patients are not broken machines, but are people whose subjective lives matter. VR is not just for gamers anymore; it is a new type of mind-body medicine.