ARISE Research

In 2018, we received a $1.8M grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to research opioid use in pediatric cancer patients.

The study will measure the effects of SpellBound’s augmented reality scavenger hunt, ARISE, on the length of hospital stay and opioid use by pediatric cancer patients after surgery.

In pediatrics, the best measure of quality of life is collected through the PedsQL. The PedsQL is the measurement model for the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory and was created by James W. Varni, Ph.D. It is a way to measure health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in healthy children and adolescents as well as in those with acute and chronic health conditions.

PedsQL is an important measure, which is why we are using it as an outcome in our NIH-backed research. Our study was done to understand how feasible it was to use augmented reality with post-surgical pediatric patients as a method of pain management. The study looked at several measures, including the PedsQL (both self-reported and parent-completed). While Phase I studies are not powered to detect outcomes, it was found that “[while] there were no significant differences in preoperative and intraoperative variables except for a slightly (but significantly) higher quality of life score in the augmented reality group.” (p < 0.001) [BJA, Aug. 11, 2022, p. e3]