www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/12/09/hospitals.gaming.ap/index.html
Health Video games calm kids before surgery More effective than tranquilizers or parental presence Image Nykia Crawford, 10, plays a hand-held video game as she is prepped for su rgery.
TRENTON, New Jersey (AP) -- Letting children play video games on a Game B oy in the operating room before undergoing surgery can help relax them b etter than tranquilizers or holding Mommy's hand, researchers say. Doctors found that allowing children a few minutes to play the games redu ced their anxiety until the anesthesia took effect. Anu Patel conducted the study after noticing a friend's 7-year-old so n was so absorbed with his Game Boy at a restaurant that he ignored the adults and the food at his table. "We find that the children are just so happy with the Game Boy that they actually do forget where they are," said Patel, an anesthesiologist at U niversity Hospital in Newark who plans to present her findings Saturday at a medical conference. Patel the findings could be helpful because many parents do not want tran quilizers given to their children. Other hospitals have long used teddy bears and games to distract children before surgery, but those techniques are generally employed in patient rooms, playrooms and waiting areas, not in the operating room. At Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, kids are encouraged to play in wa iting areas before surgery and to take a "comfort item" -- occasionally a Game Boy -- into the operating room. Patel studied 4- to 12-year-olds in three groups of 26 children each. All had parents with them in the operating room until they were anesthetize d One group also got a tranquilizer, and the third group played with a Game Boy. On average, the Game Boy group showed no increase in anxiety before surge ry. But on a standard, 100-point scale for measuring preoperative anxiet y, the tranquilizer group jumped 75 points and the parents-only group 1 75 points. Shani Willis, whose 10-year-old daughter Nykia had a cyst removed at the Newark hospital Tuesday, said the girl was nervous until she got a Game Boy. She then relaxed and played with it until she was anesthetized. "It was like she put everything out of her mind," Willis said. The hospital is considering making Game Boy use standard before pediatric surgery. Erin Stucky, head of the American Academy of Pediatrics' committee on hospital care, said Game Boys should be used more widely in hospitals i f a larger study produces the same results. "This is great because this offers a wonderful ability to have the child' s attention immersed elsewhere," she said.
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