Virtual Reality as a Treatment for Irritable Bowel Syndrome

This article provides support for utilizing a virtual reality treatment intervention for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Initially, this investigation reviews current IBS treatments and virtual reality applications, followed by a discussion section that describes how virtual reality may have the ability to deliver a more comprehensive treatment option than current treatments alone. This is attributed to virtual reality’s potential to incorporate a diversity of treatment elements found to produce positive outcomes for IBS sufferers, in particular, the analgesic effects of virtual reality as applied to abdominal pain. Abdominal pain in IBS sufferers is given special attention in this article, both because of the virtual reality–pain connection and because it is a pervasive symptom of IBS sufferers. This article concludes that virtual reality has the ability to treat abdominal pain in IBS sufferers while remaining versatile enough to incorporate, or work in conjunction with, other established treatment options.