LATCH is pleased to commit to the iPads for Patients Project throughout 2020, with an individual device being given to all children on active treatment for cancer or leukaemia and who LATCH is helping to support.
Medical professionals report that a child’s anxiety about impending procedures can make treatment difficult, prolong pain, and aggravate or complicate original medical conditions. In addition to the occasions when a child might be in pain, fear of the injury, the hospital and medical staff can go on to affect children’s hospital outcomes.
iPads offer a whole host of interactive options for all ages and levels. Through gaming, music, videos, movies and books, the revolutionary tablet can help to reduce tensions and calm children during emergency hospital assessments and medical procedures.
The iPad’s success with children who are undergoing treatment lies in its ability to provide a near-endless world of entertainment and opportunities to reduce anxiety and fear. Benefits for children include but aren’t limited to:
- Keeping in contact with friends and family through Skype, email, social media and FaceTime
- Keeping up-to-date with school-work and extra-curricular activities
- Communicating with doctors and nurses
- Managing symptoms and improving knowledge
- Alleviating boredom with the use of games and online streaming services such as Netflix and YouTube
- Prepping children for radiotherapy
- Using innovative psychology apps for communicating emotions
Each child can utilise their iPad according to his or her personal interests and tastes, improving emotional wellbeing and making a potentially scary experience a little more tolerable.
Steve Price, Communications Manager, commented: “Feedback from the ‘iPad for Patients Project’ has been absolutely overwhelming, and we have been taken by surprise at the emotional response the families have had when they’ve been presented with their chosen device. It was important for us, from the outset, to explain just how powerful the iPad can be for patients, and we’re hearing testimonials daily, including stories of children communicating more effectively with doctors, playing games while undergoing chemotherapy and FaceTiming relatives who are too far away to visit.”
Harri Stickler is just one of the hundreds of children who have received an iPad from LATCH since the project launched in 2018. His mum, Bethan, said: “Long hours awake and an inability to do many things physically mean that Harri relies heavily on his iPad to not go stir crazy, watching his favourite cartoons or playing games. Harri uses the iPad to cut out the real world of beeping pumps, drips and sounds from other rooms. Doctors and nurses can now do their examinations and treatments whilst he is concentrating on better and brighter things.”
