Not too long ago, virtual reality was the domain of techno-geeks and science fiction. Now, however, scientists at the Human Interface Technology Lab (HITL) at the UW have brought virtual reality, or VR, to the real world of children's medicine. The researchers have developed an immersive reality game called SnowWorld that can ease young burn victims' pain.

Burn victims typically have the bandages on their wounds changed every day. Although the procedure lasts only 15 to 20 minutes, it is excruciatingly painful, and medications like morphine cannot eliminate all the pain, said Sam Sharar, a professor of anesthesiology and a pediatric anesthesiologist at Harborview Medical Center.

"So many procedures done to children these days are not quite bad enough to warrant anesthesiology, but they're pretty painful," Sharar said.

Thanks to the program developed by the HITL, these children can now put on a virtual-reality helmet and escape the frightening world of the hospital. The helmet has two computer screens mounted near the patient's eyes, and the patient hears music and sound effects through earphones, said UW researcher and SnowWorld creator Hunter Hoffman. Patients can interact with the world using simple hand movements.

"Once you put the helmet on, you no longer have to see the scary things in the hospital. Your body needs to stay there to get worked on, but SnowWorld gives patients an escape route," Hoffman said.

In SnowWorld, you can shoot snowballs at snowmen, mammoths, penguins and igloos. Snowflakes dance in rhythm with the music, and a head-tracking system changes the scenery to match your movements: If you look up, you see sky; if you look the right, you see a canyon; and if you look down, you see a river, Hoffman said.

"The whole point is to make you feel like you're in a different place," Hoffman said. "It's kind of like in The Matrix,, where guys are lying in dental chairs, but their minds are in motorcycle chases and gunfights in the computer game."

The premise of the technology is simple: In order to fully experience pain, a person needs to pay attention to it, Sharar said. The virtual world creates a distraction, preventing the brain from fully processing the pain, and the patient's pain is then reduced.

Since 2000, when local entrepreneur Paul Allen first funded the group, they have demonstrated that the technology can effectively reduce pain in short, 15- to 30-minute medical procedures.

SnowWorld was developed specifically for children, but the program seems to work for both children and adults.

"We tend to think that children and young adults might do better than adults because they're so used to playing video games," Sharar said.

The SnowWorld software is offered free to burn wards that have the appropriate equipment — a VR helmet, computer and headtracker. The technology is not yet at the clinical phase, but a few hospitals, including Harborview, are already using SnowWorld.

Because the technology is still expensive, each hospital's burn center usually only has one helmet, Hoffman said. Since high-tech virtual reality helmets can run anywhere from $16,000 to $20,000, while the simpler helmets cost only $1,000, to $2,000, the researchers wanted to see whether the high-tech helmets offer better pain relief than the low-tech helmets, Sharar said.

Hoffman said the results of a recent study offer compelling evidence that the high-tech helmets are worth the extra money.

"When you consider that the average anesthesiologist makes $150,000 to $200,000 a year, that's not a lot for a medical device, especially considering how effective that is," he said.

Reporter Tia Ghose: scitech@thedaily.washington.edu