Israeli oncologist and neuroscientist collaborate on multisensory gadgets to enhance hope and wellbeing for cancer patients, families and staff.

The first day of cancer radiation therapy begins inside a simulator machine. The patient lies immobilized for up to 45 minutes while lasers and imaging scans pinpoint areas for treatment.

From his office next to the simulator, Israeli radiation oncologist Dr. Ben Corn senses the anxiety attacks brewing in the waiting area. And he understands.

He understands that patients are fearful of entering the simulator. He understands that people associate radiation with causing cancer (think Hiroshima and Chernobyl) rather than treating it.

Corn knows the radiation oncology unit can cause stress and anxiety for patients, their families and even the medical workers. And he’s determined to tackle this problem.

“I’m extremely interested in the emotional and psychological dimensions of cancer, both in terms of the consequences for patients and their caregivers and in terms of enhancing the potential of therapies I have available as an oncologist,” he tells ISRAEL21c.

That’s why Corn is partnering with trailblazing neuroscientist Amir Amedi, head of the Baruch Ivcher Institute for Brain, Cognition & Technology at Reichman University. 

Amedi and his lab are inventing multisensory devices to infuse a feeling of emotional wellbeing into the waiting, treatment and staff areas of the Radiotherapy Center that Corn will head at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center.

The lab’s new discoveries on the link between body and mind, and how that’s mapped in the brain, form the scientific basis for relaxation-inducing inventions such as:

- MRI-safe, whimsical-looking 3D glasses that immerse the patient in an entertaining movie or relaxing virtual environment.

- Chair and treatment tables embedded with tactile and auditory sensations that may relieve pain and focus attention away from the stressful environment.

- Breathing sensors with relaxing and soothing visual, sound and tactile feedback elements to encourage deeper, slower breaths that foster feelings of control and calm — and even enhance the clinical efficacy of imaging and radiotherapy.

- Relaxing auditory experiences created through in-ear recordings that aggregate how different people hear the same sounds coming from different parts of the room.

“There are patients who cannot go through the simulation because they are so afraid, and I think this is a way to take the edge off that,” says Corn, noting that the procedure may never be pleasant but at least could be tolerable.

Although music or videos inside the simulator can lower stress and anxiety, especially for children, Corn was seeking much more than that.

Image: The new Radiotherapy Center at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center is designed as an abstract butterfly suggesting metamorphosis. Architectural rendering courtesy of Shaare Zedek Medical Center