Gaming at the dentist's – serious game design for pain and discomfort distraction

Virtual reality (VR) techniques have proved effective in distracting patients from perceived pain in a variety of studies. These results, partly due to the visual impact and immersion achieved, encourage investigating the purposeful design of games for deployment in a variety of dentist treatments. In fact, a large group of patients, particularly youngsters, experience a strong resistance or even aversion to visiting a dentist's practice, often due to previous distressing and painful experiences. We argue that, to solve such situations, distracting a patient with just an attractive virtual environment is less efficient than with an interactive game expressly designed for this context and purpose. This paper presents the first results of a pilot project in this direction. We discuss the various requirements gathered throughout the project, and describe several technological challenges, involving e.g. user experience, interaction, content, graphics, which we faced throughout the game design and development phases. Although the project is still ongoing, the preliminary results of the prototype game evaluation in a controlled environment were very encouraging.