“Oh my gosh, those were the easiest shots I’ve ever done for a 5-year-old.”

— Registered Nurse

"This is an amazing way for parents to participate instead of just adding stress to the situation."

— Certified Child Life Specialist at Michigan-based children's hospital

“We’ve been excited by the kids who we did give ARISE to; they took to it, encouraging other kids to walk by their rooms. Telling kids about the app and encouraging one another.”

— Certified Child Life Specialist

“We do see this as a good intervention to build rapport and trust with patients to then provide more therapeutic conversations/interventions.”

“Breaking up the activities serves for good incentive the following day when engaging with patients over time.”

— Manager of Child Life, MD Anderson Cancer Center

"The idea of helping the characters seemed motivating for the child and it definitely encouraged her to move around the room looking for all the items. I think this is a great tool to encourage mobility, provide motivation to move, and also just as a distraction from hospitalization in general."

— Child Life Manager, Comer Children's Hospital

"It's awesome that these cards fit in my name badge...I always have them with me."

— Registered Nurse

"For children with new disabilities, most have never interacted with augmented reality before so they have no baseline of what they “should” be able to do, so they don’t experience frustration at loss of abilities."

— Rehabilitation Engineer at Michigan-based children's hospital

"I gave the parents and the patient each an animal on the Magic Tree card to control during the procedure, so that they all had a job to do."

— Certified Child Life Specialist at Michigan-based children's hospital

“A child life specialist in the OR had a patient who was inconsolable. They pulled out the SpellBound app and the Albert the Manatee book and she immediately stopped screaming and yelling, started interacting with the book and was playing with it all the way into the OR until she got sedated to go to sleep... It opened a lot of eyes here. It impressed my staff. They said, ‘Oh, wow! This can really help us!’”

— Registered Nurse

“With the SpellBound books and cards, we are encouraging kids to use fine motor movements to interact with them. They are motivated to keep trying even if it is hard because they want to see what comes next. The “magic” of the augmented reality aspect helps the children to escape the scary or uncertain hospital environment to do something imaginative… all while doing their therapeutic exercises.”

— Rehabilitation Engineer at Michigan-based children's hospital

A 7 year old boy had to get an IV start in emergency situation. The CCLS gave him the mouse Journey Card and told him "Touch the mouse every time it hurts. That way when the nurse hears the mouse noise, she'll know to be gentle." He follows directions, and by the end of the procedure he's just interacting with the mouse for fun, distracted from the procedure.

— Registered Nurse

“People are ‘prescribing’ ARISE as part of a patient’s movement-based therapy!”

— Patient Technology Specialist

Brindi was called into a patient’s room without knowing what to expect, and came in to find a little boy who was getting a catheterization. She didn’t have time to prepare, but she had the SpellBound app on her smartphone and a SpellBound Magic Tree card slipped in her name badge.

“The patient loved it so much. He was smiling and laughing throughout the procedure. He was making the same sounds as the animals,” Brindi told us. The mother of the boy was absolutely shocked to see her son laughing through a procedure that was so uncomfortable.

— A Registered Nurse

"A 14 year old girl came in who needed to get blood drawn, but she had a needle phobia. The CCLS gave her a SpellBound card to distract her during the procedure.

During the procedure, the girl was playing with the card and was not even paying attention to the needle, and the mom looked at the CCLS, shocked. She's silently gesturing to the CCLS how shocked she is and the CCLS is shushing her so that the girl doesn't notice and motioning her to just let the girl keep playing. After they're done, the CCLS says "OK, we're all done!" and the girl asks "Can I keep playing with this?""

— A Registered Nurse

“It’s not just something for the patients. It’s something for the brothers and sisters, the cousins and all the friends, to look forward to when they come to the hospital to visit. It makes the hospital less scary for them as well.”

— Certified Child Life Specialist at Michigan-based children's hospital