SEED PROJECT: VR Nature for Neuropathic Pain Management: Application to People with Spinal Cord Injuries in Inpatient Settings

About the Project

People/organisations involved:
Michael Norwood – The Hopkins Centre
Soo Oh – Queensland Spinal Cord Injuries Service
Katie Barrett – Queensland Spinal Cord Injuries Service
Nicholas Aitcheson – The Hopkins Centre; Metro South Health Persistent Pain Service
Michel Coppieters – The Hopkins Centre; Griffith University Persistent Pain Research Group
Louise Gustafsson – The Hopkins Centre
Julie Brice – Lived Experience Citizen Researcher (The Hopkins Centre)
Justin Hua – Lived Experience Citizen Researcher (The Hopkins Centre)

Chronic neuropathic (nerve) pain occurs for around 53% of people following a spinal cord injury (SCI). Nerve pain is difficult to manage, partly due to the complex interplay between physical and psychological mechanisms that contribute to the onset and continuation of nerve pain. Medication treatments for nerve pain reduce in effectiveness over time or may not be effective at all for some people with nerve pain. Most approaches also do not target both physical and psychological aspects of pain simultaneously.

VR Nature, or showing nature scenes through VR, has demonstrated effectiveness in reducing symptoms of psychological distress, and of pain, for people with SCI, and has been found to be acceptable and feasible for hospital patients, including people with SCI, and acquired brain injuries (ABI). VR Nature may also provide pain reduction in as little as 15 minutes of administration. There is a need to explore the potential of VR Nature for pain management for people with SCI, considering this may be a low-cost, easily scalable and transferable self-management strategy for people with SCI.

Aim and objective:

The project has two aims.

The first is to examine the effectiveness of using VR Nature to reduce nerve pain and symptoms of psychological distress for inpatients following SCI (phase 1).
The second is to explore the feasibility of implementing VR Nature for the self-management of nerve pain for inpatients by providing participants with their own personal cardboard VR headset to continue VR Nature use following the trial (phase 2).

Expected outcomes and impact:

Neuropathic pain is a considerable secondary health challenge that many people experience following a SCI, with these symptoms often emerging within acute rehabilitation settings as an inpatient. It is anticipated that the team will find that showing people nature scenes through VR may be helpful to reduce their short-term experience of nerve pain following each VR Nature session (compared to pre-VR Nature). The team expects to find that sustained VR Nature usage (i.e., 3 sessions a week for 2 weeks) may lead to reductions in pain and in symptoms of psychological distress over time compared to pre-trial and compared to two-weeks of rehabilitation as usual. Following the implementation stage (phase 2) we are expecting to find that virtually delivered nature may be a low-cost, effective, and highly acceptable, scalable, and translatable form of intervention for people with SCI who experience nerve pain.

Project status and timeframe:

Ethical approval has been provided, and the project is currently being approved for research governance with Metro South Health Hospital and Health Service. Data collection is scheduled to commence in July 2026 and be completed by Q1 in 2027, with results and findings to be disseminated from Q2 in 2027.