You haven't tried virtual reality before?
No, I never.
How are you feeling?
We have this instinct in America to treat things
with pills, and that can lead to dependency.
There's gotta be something else we can do.
Okay, let's see what happens here.
And what we found was that virtual reality
can significantly improve somebody's quality of life.
Virtual reality is powerful because it's as if
the VR has temporarily inoculated the brain against pain.
With virtual reality, we've seen a 50% reduction in pain.
So do you feel like you're in a hospital now or...?
[keyboard keys tapping]
I'm Brendan Spiegel,
Director of Health Services Research for Cedar Sinai.
If I see any new biomedical innovation,
whether it's a technology or otherwise,
my first instinct is it's not gonna work.
That's the null hypothesis.
That's what science is based on.
As of three years ago,
I hadn't even heard of virtual reality.
Matt Stout and the AppliedVR team came in,
and they told me about this technology,
that sort of nudges the brain.
What you're gonna do now is a virtual reality experience
that we've created to demonstrate the ability
of VR to hijack the brain.
And they had me stand on top of a building,
[siren wailing]
and my brain was hijacked.
My brain thought, I am about to die,
and they said, "Just go ahead and jump off the building.
"Just leap off."
I said, "No chance, I'm not gonna do that."
They said, "Well, you know that
"your feet are standing on carpet, right?"
And I said, "My feet know that,
"but my brain doesn't know that."
I could not disambiguate this virtual reality
from real reality, and I realized
at that moment that this was a technology
that can overwhelm the mind, and it could be used for evil,
but maybe it could be used for good also.
[gentle piano music]
We talk about virtual reality like it's one thing,
but VR, the headset is like a syringe.
What I mean by that is, what matters is not the syringe,
what matters is what medicine goes through the syringe.
What is the patient seeing, feeling, hearing, experiencing?
That's the therapeutic arm of virtual reality.
I don't know how we do this,
but it would be great to figure out if there's a way
to build a sensor into the headset.
It relaxes them to the point
where they can start to fall asleep.
Dr. Brendan Spiegel has been an amazing partner for us.
We're using immersive technology
to help address the pain crisis in America.
Opioids are now the biggest drug epidemic
in American history.
If you have a major operation or any kind of surgery,
or even if you haven't had an operation, you get a pill.
If you take one day of opioids,
there's a 6% chance you'll be dependent
on it 12 months later.
That's how powerful they are in causing dependency.
Recently, I was in the hospital every month.
I had extreme pain,
so I'm on like 30 different medications right now.
There comes a point when you're taking so many meds,
it almost feels like nothing is really helping.
We had to do something to change the situation,
and that's actually where I met Dr. Spiegel.
They were doing the trial project
for the virtual reality program.
[laughs]
Oh my God.
The breeze is blowing through.
There's the Hollywood sign, and there's my house.
In that study, we found that it runs interference in a way
that affects the way the brain is experiencing
the physical phenomena of illness.
[exhales]
Dr. Spiegel's team is doing some incredible things.
When I'm in there, I forget about my pain,
I forget about what I'm going through.
It allows me to go even longer without taking my pain meds.
People ask, what happens when they take the headset off?
Do they then need the opioid?
And what's so fascinating is, the answer is no.
It hasn't cured the underlying disease,
but for a period of time, the brain is in a different place.
How are you feeling?
I heard you have some abdominal pain.
See if that's comfortable on your face.
Let me know what you're seeing.
Does this help at all?
Yeah, 'cause it's not hurting now.
We've had now almost 2.500 people at Cedar Sinai
receive therapeutic immersive virtual reality,
and it's amazing to me if I think back
to jumping off that building,
to see just how this has exploded,
and for us to be able to provide a little respite
for somebody suffering from pain
without having to turn to a pharmacotherapy,
or an opioid, that's compelling.
Back to real reality for a second.
With virtual reality, we've seen a 50% reduction of pain.
We're also looking at ways that we can bring in
what's called a haptic device, something that actually
can vibrate and bring in the sense of touch.
The more senses we can immerse,
the more powerful we can make this therapeutic.
The most amazing things I realized
after using the virtual reality,
is that I could take my mind off the pain.
The goal is not for people to be in VR forever.
The goal is to train the mind
with increasingly sophisticated techniques
to appreciate real reality, having a different mindset
upon reemerging into the world.
Just like mindful meditation,
it's just a new way of tweaking the mind
to become sort of super better, in essence.
[electronic music]