How do you take the fear and anxiety out of doctors’ visits for kids? When Andrew was working in a hospital emergency room and seeing many fearful children come and go each day (and in some cases having the unpleasant task of restraining a child who was too upset to hold still for a shot or stitches), this was a question he wanted to answer.
At this year’s South by Southwest festival, Andrew presented Axon Virtual Health’s solution to this problem at the "Austin's Best VR/AR Startups" where Axon was voted “Most Innovative Startup” at the event.
Axon was created as an antidote to the status-quo solution of handing a child an iPad to distract them in a doctor’s office. While iPads and other distractions might be effective in the moments leading up to a procedure, all bets are off once a needle moves into sight. Axon’s fully-immersive virtual reality programs mean that patients are entirely removed from the doctor’s office, which eliminates much of the anxiety associated with clinical procedures. Furthermore, virtual reality has been clinically proven to be more effective than morphine in some cases at controlling pain and anxiety, making this form of distraction an excellent, drug-free solution to keeping pediatric patients calm and reducing pain.
