Dr Alison Lally at the Canberra Hospital shows Max Fenton, a 12-year-old with autism, some of the tools to distract himself from the chaos of the emergency department.
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00:00 [Music]
00:06 This is a VR headset and it's something that you might like.
00:11 What we can do is show you what programs we have.
00:14 Some people do find it a little bit petty but it's a good distraction tool,
00:18 which sometimes can be nice in the ED.
00:21 Look around and see the stars or the sharks in the water or the seals
00:29 or the puppies, that's what I like, or the magic show.
00:32 So a few people like the magic show if you want to give that a go.
00:35 And this came as a donation from the Canberra Hospital Foundation.
00:41 And when I first saw this, one of the things that I asked was the benefits
00:45 for neurodiverse kids because with my son being autistic,
00:50 I really wanted to, now that I'm in that kind of mental health space,
00:54 to help others.
00:56 As you know, as a mum, you don't always in that headspace.
00:59 Any kid loves it because it's a distraction from the procedures that happen,
01:03 also the noise and the bright lights and chaos of the ED.
01:08 [Music]
01:11 And this is so that they are aware of why it needs to happen,
01:15 what are the appropriate steps that are going to happen,
01:18 and also what it's going to look like afterwards,
01:20 which are really key things because the uncertainty becomes
01:23 really stressful for a lot of our kids.
01:26 [BLANK_AUDIO]