Simulating Illness: Experiencing Visual Migraine Impairments in Virtual Reality

Combining virtual reality (VR) and serious games has shown high potential to raise understanding for patients and how symptoms might impact their well-being. To investigate migraine symptoms, we developed a visual migraine simulation in a virtual environment (VE) using a VR head-mounted display (HMD). For the migraine visualization we developed a migraine aura combined with an overexposure effect. We conducted a user study (N = 32) in a within-subject design with two conditions: (1) taking the perspective of a migraine patient and only imagining to suffer from migraine, (2) experiencing migraine by additionally being exposed to a migraine visualization. Participants answered questionnaires measuring their empathic reaction towards migraine patients and their experienced presence. Results yield that participants showed a significantly and notably higher empathic reaction and a slightly stronger sense of presence when visually experiencing migraine symptoms, compared to only imagining to suffer from migraine.