Virtual Reality for Kids

Henry:

Well, there's more dolphins. There's like a school of them. I'm Henry and I'm 11. I broke my arm while I was snowboarding.It hurt a little bit. And I was a little bit nervous.

Jeremy:

I'm Jeremy, I'm Henry's dad. And when we brought him to Shriner's last Monday, we were worried that he would have to have surgery, and when they offered the virtual reality headset to use instead of medication during the setting process, setting and casting process, I was sold on it.

Ryan Baker:

Using the VR, I was very much a skeptic in the very beginning. Didn't think it would necessarily do anything and I didn't buy in because I was used to giving medications and things. Whereas the virtual reality, after the first couple times we used it, it completely changed the whole persona. The kids were probably in and out the hospital a little bit more quickly. They didn't have to recover. And a lot of times it was saving them a trip to the operating room or something like that, too. So it's been a nice benefit and I've been all in after using it clinically, and with the assistance of Child Life being there and help walking kids through it's been fantastic.

Larissa Sims:

The virtual reality program here, it's all funded through the Spirit of Children funds. The Spirit of Halloween stores every year does a fundraiser that brings in money to the Child Life rec therapy department here at the hospital, and those funds go directly to things that impact the kids like this virtual reality program, and then other things that we do throughout the year.

Jeremy:

Larissa and Dr. Baker during the setting were so amazing. It gets pretty graphic when you're setting a bone and Dr. Baker, I could see he was getting ready to set the bone, and Larissa distracted Henry by asking him what he was seeing in the virtual reality headset, and it totally distracted him, as his bone rebroke because he had broke it three days prior, so the fusing had already started. So it was amazing. He didn't even know what was going on.

Speaker 5:

So Henry, describe to me what you're seeing.

Henry:

Well, I'm underwater right now. I see my boat. I'm just coming off of it. And there's a lot of fish and you can shoot them and they turn rainbow.

Larissa Sims:

We've had so many successes and a lot of times the reaction is a patient says, "Ow, that hurts," and then they turn and go, "There's a whale."

Henry:

It was really fun, and it distracted me from the pain a lot. And it helped a lot. There was this underwater game where you would shoot the fish and they would turn a different color, and a safari game and you would shoot the animals with water and wash them off.

Larissa Sims:

It works really well because it pulls the patient's attention away from what's happening into this beautiful virtual world that's designed to be very relaxing. And because of that and with a little bit of cuing and telling the kids what to expect and what to do, they're able to get through their procedures really well.

Jeremy:

I'm completely sold on it and very happy with the results.

Henry:

It's like a miracle. It works like a charm and you can't really... It distracts you from the pain really well.

Ryan Baker:

Getting the funds and the fundraising that Spirit of Children has been able to contribute to the hospital gives us the opportunity to use pretty cool technology like kindVR and those sort of things to help make it a better experience so the kids aren't walking away from the hospital, thinking about either a needle poke, pain, getting an IV, or anything like that, and they're more walking away with, "I was playing a game. I was painting fish with bubbles," or whatever it may be as part of their departing experience and gifts that maybe they're not as fearful when they come back the second time.

Larissa Sims:

We do things all throughout the year to make the hospital less scary for children, whether they're in our clinic, in our fracture clinic, or seeing one of our doctors. And then it goes up to our patients that are on the inpatient unit that are having surgery, doing things with them also to make them have a good experience while they're here.

Jeremy:

So I would like to thank all the employees and the owners of Spirit of the Children that put all the time and effort into raising the funds to provide the solutions to this hospital. It was it's amazing.

Henry: