Cincinnati Children’s nurse creates game to help reduce anesthesia anxiety in children
By Fletcher Keel
Click here for updates on this story
CINCINNATI (WLWT) — Cincinnati Children’s is the first medical center in the United States to pilot a video game to help children relax when they need to receive anesthesia before falling asleep for surgery.
Children’s says one of the hospital’s nurse practitioners, Abby Hess, invented the game, which is controlled by breathing and hooked up to a tablet. LittleSeed Calming Technologies LLC, based in Columbus, Ohio, has licensed the right to market the app to other hospitals.
The game features cartoon animals that children are able to move by breathing into a mask and helps reduce anxiety during the anesthesia-induction process, the hospital says.
“Many young patients become anxious when an anesthesia mask is placed over their face in the operating room,” said Abby Hess, a doctor of nursing practice who invented the video game concept at Cincinnati Children’s, in a press release. “I wanted to find a way to help kids feel calmer during this high-anxiety moment.”
According to the hospital, anesthesia is commonly administered through a mask to kids aged 10 or younger. It’s common for children to resist the anesthesia mask, despite the best efforts of medical professionals and parents to prepare the child.
When the child puts on the mask and starts to breathe in and out, the hospital says, they win different challenges in the engaging animal-themed world of the game.
“The game shifts the focus from something scary to something that’s calming and fun,” Hess said. “It easily engages kids, teaches them to breathe calmly, and lets them know what to expect when they go back to the operating room. Seeing their child engage with the game also helps parents feel at ease and provides them with a novel way to coach their child during the process.”
“People may not realize that Cincinnati Children’s is a hub for medical innovation,” said Abram Gordon, vice president of Innovation Ventures, the medical center’s technology transfer and commercialization group, in a press release. “Cincinnati Children’s has a long history of creating vaccines, therapeutics, medical products and digital solutions – and we are ahead of the curve with organoid and small molecule research.”
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
