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31 t m c » p u l s e | s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 9 eating Popsicles and her dragon. I think she had a pretty good experience." For older patients, Texas Children's offers virtual reality goggles donated by Starlight Children's Foundation that allow for a completely immersive and alternative experience outside the hospital. "Little kids aren't really candidates for the VR because they need to have control of their surroundings, they need to see mom and to know what's going on. Whereas a 13-year-old, they may not care," Chen said. "It's 100 percent distraction and many older kids want that." In fact, Chen said, her team is doing a prelim- inary study analyzing how VR goggles can help during IV placement while patients are awake. "Right now, the preliminary data suggests that it minimizes pain or they're not bothered by it," Chen said. "So, the pain might be the same, but they're happy to do it again so long as they have the virtual reality goggles." The CHARIOT program has been so suc- cessful in the anesthesia department that Texas Children's is trying to determine how it could be useful in the clinical setting. Recently, Julina Ongkasuwan, M.D., pediatric otolaryngologist and director of the Pediatric Voice Clinic at Texas Children's, employed BERT to help distract a patient during an oral exam that used a scope. Instead of asking the young girl to breathe into a mask, she asked her to open her mouth and say "Ahhhhhhhh" in order to entice the dragon to cook his food. Because so many young patients have trouble completing these exams, distracting them with an interactive game was an appealing idea. "I think it was really helpful, definitely with the anxiety, because we're doing these invasive procedures where we're putting scopes in their noses and their mouths and it's kind of intimi- dating and scary for them," Ongkasuwan said. "I think anything we can do to decrease the trauma is beneficial, especially for those kids who have to come repeatedly." The CHARIOT program originated at Stanford Children's Health in California. Texas Children's is one of the first hospitals in the nation to adopt the entertainment suite. The mul- tidisciplinary program supports the work of many members of the hospital's care team, including child life, anesthesiology, surgery and nursing. SiennaTX.com 20+ MODEL HOMES Homes from the Low $200sMILLION + • Seven on-site Fort Bend ISD schools K-12 • Acres of parks + trails, resort-style waterparks • On-site fitness centers, golf, tennis, sports complex and stables Welcome to The Good Life 610 45 6 TEXAS 8 8 59 90 288 521 F OR T BE N D PA R K W A Y DOWNTOWN GREENWAY MED CENTER GALLERIA