The emergency room of Paris’s Saint-Joseph Hospital now offers patients trips to other worlds, while they have their wounds stitched up or burns cleaned and salved. Patients can don new VR gear and take a guided tour to distant lands, play music, or engage in a range of engaging activities, taking their minds away from pain and anxiety. Initial research indicates that patients show a distinguishable increase in calmness and less reaction to pain when using VR. The hospital’s “Healthy Mind” project already has received a $20,000 prize from an Australian university and has begun discussions with Microsoft.
