Patients who use a virtual reality headset during hand surgery may need less anesthesia care, according to data from a new study.
Researchers enrolled 40 adults undergoing hand surgery and randomly assigned them to receive intraoperative VR in addition to monitored anesthesia care (MAC) or standard MAC alone (PLoS One 2022;17[9]:e0272030). In both groups, patients received preoperative regional anesthesia at the discretion of the provider.
The researchers’ primary outcome was intraoperative