Stanford Children’s Eases Needle Jabs With the Buddy Guard Device

As back-to-school season kicks into high gear, parents and students alike are facing a crucial, yet often overlooked, task: ensuring that all necessary vaccinations are up-to-date to safeguard both health and educational success. And even though most kids are afraid of needles and don’t want a shot, there’s a new device at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health that’s helping to ease some of that fear—the Buddy Guard. Its distracting vibrations can lessen the pain of vaccination.

The Buddy Guard is a new wireless penguin-shaped device aimed to ease the pain and anxiety of vaccinations. The CHARIOT Program, which creates and studies innovative approaches to treating pediatric pain and stress through technology, created the kid-friendly penguin to vibrate on the patient’s arm while they play a video game, with the vibrations intensifying as the game gets more challenging. A nurse or clinician delivers the vaccine on the same arm where the penguin is vibrating. This innovative approach aims to reduce needle-related fears and improve overall vaccination rates by making the experience more comfortable and less stressful for kids.

The Buddy Guard connects to the tablet-based game via Bluetooth. Clinicians and patients can select from different haptic vibration patterns and synchronize the device with some of the therapeutic video games the CHARIOT team developed to distract patients during medical procedures.

Currently, the Buddy Guard syncs to the tablet-based video game called Whack-a-Chicken, where the patient plays tag with chickens that keep popping onto their tablet screen. As the nurse approaches with a needle poke, more chickens frantically appear on the screen, and the patient feels more vibrations. The CHARIOT research team has observed that high-frequency vibrations can reduce the pain that patients feel during procedures.

How it can be used

“The Buddy Guard can help ease patients’ experience with immunizations—flu, COVID, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccinations; blood draws; and IV placement, as well as other minor procedures associated with low to moderate levels of pain,” said Samuel Rodriguez, MD, pediatric anesthesiologist and co-director of the CHARIOT Program. “Our hope is that we will be able to decrease the incidence of developing long-term fears and phobias related to needles and health care while increasing the rates of vaccination throughout a patient’s lifetime.”   

The Buddy Guard can also be used for more intense procedures, such as wound and burn care or stitches, as long as the injury is in a location where the device can be comfortably applied, like the arm, hand, or foot. It is a necessary addition to a strong pediatric perianesthesia practice.

“It effectively distracts children and adolescents during peripheral IV placements, one of the scariest moments during preop preparation,” said Christine Lawrence, RN, preop nurse at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. “Their attention is captured, thereby reducing their pain and anxiety significantly—all of this without use of medication.”

The device is being featured in two clinical studies at Packard Children’s Hospital. The goal is to expand the library of distraction video games that the Buddy Guard is compatible with and make it available at all Stanford Children’s clinics across Northern California.

“The great thing about distraction techniques in medical care is that unlike nearly all medications, there are no side effects,” said Rodriguez. “The right distraction technique in the right patient can be as effective as any medication for getting patients through challenging health care situations and procedures. That being said, it is always important to understand the limits of distraction techniques and manage expectations for both patients and health care professionals.”