Introduction to Oncohematology of Rimini for pediatric patients

If as a child something or someone particularly fearful had stolen you from your everyday life, from school, from friendships, from sports, perhaps even from a little brother or sister, to place yourself at the entrance of a long labyrinth for the purpose to test your ability to overcome these difficulties, wouldn't you have wanted a GPS to orient you? It is clearly a rhetorical question, however useful to explain in a few simple words the usefulness of the new project that links the Oncological Institute of Romagna and the Pediatric Oncohematology department of the Infermi Hospital of Rimini, a reference center in our area for treatment. of cancers affecting boys. The idea came from the psychologist who follows the patients of the operating unit, Dr. Samanta Nucci: the IOR is developing it and making it concrete, thanks to the collaboration of the team of Pikkart specialists.

We are talking about "MASCOT", acronym for "Medical App in Support of Oncohematological Care and Therapies": a new tool that will soon be supplied to the department of Dr. Roberta Pericoli and which will see the same doctor transform into a sort of cartoon , like those who populated the world of Roger Rabbit. Children and adolescents who will come to the hospital for the first time immediately after a tumor diagnosis, at the beginning of their treatment path, will be introduced to the world of the ward thanks to augmented reality: a means that is at the same time very familiar to digital natives but also original and engaging. Through the screen of their smartphone they will see the "cartoon" version of Dr. Pericoli appear inside the nerve centers where the treatments will take place, who in a very simple and clear way will explain to them what it means to have an oncohematological disease, or how it works a CT scan, or what happens inside the operating room and what are the effects, desired or not, of a course of chemotherapy.