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| Title | Prototyping Gaze-Controlled Virtual Reality Video Games as a Way to Control Acute Pain in the Treatment of Burned Children |
| Authors | Mario Recabarren, Maria Gabriela Hidalgo, Francisco Gutierrez |
| Publication date | 2026 |
| Abstract | Acute pain is a type of intense pain that does not persist over time but is present while tissues heal. While medication is typically considered a first-line treatment for acute pain in adults, we still lack robust empirical evidence on its effectiveness and potential harms in pediatric patients. Rehabilitation teams at COANIQUEM (Corporación de Ayuda al Niño Quemado -- Burned Children Foundation) work with children who have suffered burns and often experience intense acute pain, particularly during the wound care provided by the experts. In this paper, we explore the opportunity to prototype virtual reality interactive software that increases patient involvement, thereby helping mitigate acute pain through immersive delocalization. The application offers two interactive minigames that are explicitly controlled using gaze-based mechanisms due to environmental restrictions imposed by the treatment of upper limbs and the need to minimize the introduction of foreign objects into sterile medical rooms. In fact, since a significant percentage of patients who come to the center are recovering from burns on their hands and arms, this limits their ability to interact with traditional video game controllers. We conducted a two-fold prototype evaluation involving domain experts in burn rehabilitation and proxy users, given the constraints and inherent risks of involving burned patients as end users in the early stages of development. The results show positive assessments of gameplay, usability, and perceived usefulness from both experts and end users, highlighting that the proposed video games offer a strong sense of immersion, presence, and involvement. |
| Pages | 372-388 |
| Conference name | Human-Computer Interaction in Games |
| Publisher | Springer Nature Switzerland AG (Cham, Switzerland) |
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