Imagine a doctor offering you a virtual reality headset to help explain an upcoming procedure.

It turns out such an explanation might go farther to easing your worries than the usual handout leaflet, researchers reported Friday at a meeting in London of the European Association of Urology (EAU).

Patients said they felt less anxious and better informed after receiving a VR-based briefing about a rather intimidating-sounding procedure, shockwave lithotripsy.

“VR has been shown to improve learning and knowledge retention, and our study suggests it could be used to help people to make more fully informed decisions about their health,” lead researcher Solomon Bracey, a medical student at the University of Southampton in the U.K., said in a news release.

In shockwave lithotripsy, doctors use high-energy sound waves to break up kidney stones into smaller pieces.

The VR briefing placed patients in a virtual operating room, where they watched a 3D demonstration of the procedure. The visuals zoomed into the kidneys to show the shockwaves and how they affected the kidney stones, and highlighted the key risks and benefits.

To test its effectiveness, the VR briefing was provided to 150 people ages 22 to 80 prior to undergoing shockwave lithotripsy.

The briefing significantly eased people’s worries, particularly those of seniors 65 and older, researchers said.

Researchers are now looking into whether easing a person’s anxiety could help ease their pain.

“The use of VR is an exciting idea that could enhance the patient experience during the consent process,” said Dr. Matthew Bultitude, a consultant urological surgeon at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust in London, who was not involved in the study.

“Technology should never replace a conversation with a clinician, where patients have a chance to ask detailed questions, but it could help to level the playing field in terms of health literacy, so that everyone comes into that discussion with the same baseline level of information,” he added in a news release.

Bracey presented the study Friday at the EAU meeting.

Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.