Voxel bay: VR as a distraction for pediatric pain

Voxel Bay is a hands-free, immersive virtual reality (VR) game designed for children to play in a medical setting to offer distraction from pain and anxiety that may arise during medical procedures. The application has been developed at Nationwide Children's Hospital (NCH) by Alice Grishchenko, John Luna and Jeremy Patterson in collaboration with NCH's Director of Hematology, Dr. Amy Dunn. In addition to developing a game, a user-centered design approach has resulted in a system which encompasses a child's entire clinic experience outside of the game. Children who come to clinic will start their experience by receiving a child-sized cardboard headset, which they can customize. The game runs from an iPod touch placed inside the headset. Headphones with a built in microphone are incorporated into the device so the player can listen to the game and give audio input, thus the experience provides both visual and audio stimulation to reduce the patient's contextual awareness. The components of the headset have been reviewed by the NCH safety center. Before starting, a connection is established between the player and a networked remote control station operated by a clinician-orchestrator. From this station the clinician can end and start mini-games, restart the game, mute and unmute the audio and open a pop-up camera view into the clinic room.