How can we reassure children who have to have an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging)? This medical examination, if not painful, can be very impressive when you are little: lying in a cylinder for half an hour, perfectly still, surrounded by loud and sometimes frightening noises. So to try to reassure them, the Strasbourg hospital has just equipped itself with an “MRI in game”, a simulator which already exists in around thirty hospitals around the world and which allows children to train before the real exam.
Practice staying still
“You go to bed and then we can take the photos,” explains Aline, a volunteer from the Blouses Roses association, kindly and patiently to Auguste, 5 years old, who is intimidated. The little boy will have to have an MRI for the first time in his life and to prepare him for it, he first trains on the “MRI in game” which the Strasbourg hospital has just acquired.
This replica of a child-sized MRI machine in the shape of a rocket produces the same noises, sometimes impressive, as the real machine. Lying on his back in the small cylinder, Auguste must also learn to remain perfectly still. “If you move in a photo, what happens?” Aline asks him. “It’s blurry,” Auguste murmurs. “Exactly! There, it’s the same,” confirms the volunteer, pointing to a screen that records her movements. “When it’s green, you’ve done the statue well. When it’s red, it’s because you’ve moved a little. And you’ve done almost everything in green, you’re a champion!” she congratulates him. “Now you do the same in the real machine,” Aline encourages him.
At the end of the simulation, Auguste seems more reassured and he has learned his lesson: he now knows that we must “not move”.
To avoid “a good part of general anesthesia”
This “MRI in game” already exists in around thirty hospitals around the world. The simulation only takes a few minutes and helps children a lot. “If they are prepared before, there are no surprises when they arrive in the real machine,” assures Aline, who takes care of the demonstration. “And above all it gives them confidence” adds Sylvie, her colleague.
“MRI in play” and the fact that it teaches children to remain still can also have a major advantage: “It has been shown that this makes it possible to avoid a large part of general anesthesia,” confirms Clément, MRI manipulator at the Strasbourg hospital. “It’s something that is not trivial, that takes time, that requires a lot of products, that blocks a bed. If we can avoid this for children, parents and also caregivers, it’s all beneficial! “, he concludes.
Indeed, in more than 8 out of 10 cases, small patients avoid sedation thanks to the “MRI in game”, according to a study carried out in hospitals which have had the machine for several years already.