LEGO Donates LEGO MRI Sets To Hospitals To Ease Anxiety In Young Patients

The LEGO Foundation announces they’re donating 600 miniature LEGO MRI Scanner kits to hospitals around the world to help kids deal with the anxiety of getting an MRI scan. In 2015, LEGO employee Erik Ullerlund Staehr had a great idea: to build a LEGO model of an MRI scanner that medical staff could use to help get children who needed to have an MRI scan to get ready for it.

The first LEGO MRI scanner set was put to use at Odense University Hospital (OUH) in Denmark where each year it has helped to make getting an MRI scan less scary and more fun for over 200 four- to nine-year-old children. Ulla Jensen, departmental radiographer at OUH says that using the LEGO sets leads to a more positive and calm experience for the kids. “This also benefits the quality of the MRI scan, which relies on the person being very still for up to an hour to work,” Jensen explains. And because it reduces stress and anxiety, use of the kits has led to lower use of anesthetics, too.

Nearly 100 hospitals globally have already benefited from the pilot program and in order to make a bigger impact, the LEGO Foundation decided to make and distribute 600 more kits to hospitals around the world for free. The day they opened the application process, they got over 15-hundred applications. In the coming months, LEGO employees will be volunteering their time to create the kits and will be shipping them out as they finish them. The foundation also produced free teaching materials to help medical pros know how to best use the kits to explain the process to their young patients.

Source: Good News Network


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