Little Nirvana: gaming technology distracts children during stressful or painful procedures

Gaming environment

“Little Nirvana has been developed as a compelling game that supports children during their entire hospital visit: from the waiting room to the procedure to the aftercare,” says researcher Babs Weyn from the Medical Imaging Research center. “Little Nirvana takes place in a calming forest environment that evolves when the patient interacts with it. Children get a magic wand with which they can conjure up animals and figurines provided they make soothing movements and use calming breathing techniques. With this new interactions and new animated characters emerge in the game with which the patient can interact further.”

Hologram

The children are being supported and guided by the experience by the bird-like creature Milo. 

Babs Weyn: “Milo has been developed in Hyper VSN-technology, a type of hologram, which gives the children the feeling the Milo is really present in the room with them. For smaller examination rooms we use AR glasses. The forest and Milo are then projected into the space through these glasses.”

Successful

“Little Nirvana has since been tested in more than 100 patients, including at UZ Leuven. These tests show that Little Nirvana is very effective in distracting and calming both children and their carers during stressful procedures. The 1.0 prototype The 1.0 prototype will be reworked and extended into a modular, multi-application system in a second research project, which will run until 2025.”

Little Nirvana came in part about thanks to support from Europe WSE - EU.