Virtual Reality MRI: Playful Reduction of Children's Anxiety in MRI Exams

Many people, especially children, perceive MRI exams as threatening. They experience anxiety and stress during the procedure. Often this results in premature termination of the scan or low image quality. To avoid these adverse effects, it is common to sedate anxious patients. We present a playful virtual reality (VR) application for children (8 - 15 years) to counter anxiety and avoid sedation. Our approach uses a realistic virtual MRI scanner for desensitization and habituation to the MRI exam. To compensate the limited amount of profound knowledge about the design of child-tailored VR applications, we pursued a child-centered design process. Starting with expert interviews, we iterated through several development cycles and carried out focus group testings to evaluate prototypes of the VR application. Then, we conducted a field study with 13 patients under real life clinical conditions. Although results were non-significant, tendencies indicate a drop in the anxiety level after using the application. Furthermore, the application received strong support of the participating children, and medical professionals.