Game Boys Make Going To The Dentist Fun

Dentists. The mere word can send shivers up your spine, so think what it does to little kids. Luckily there seems to be a cure, and it involves a Game Boy.

If there's anything that strikes terror into the heart of more people than anything in Silent Hill, it's the thought of that high-pitched whining drill coming into contact with your teeth.

Most dentists (apart from mine) understand this and have long looked at ways to overcome children's natural reaction to getting a tearing instrument of torture next to their nerve endings.

Help may be on hand with the PediSedate, developed by Dr. Geoffrey Hart, which connects to any Game Boy or CD player. The Game Boy connects to headphones fitted into the headpiece, which fits smoothly onto the head. Then the child simply pulls the snorkel down and a variety of instruments monitor their breathing and slowly introduces nitrous oxide (laughing gas) to take them off to dreamy land.

Using a similar distraction technique used in the Snow World game (for injured soldiers), the child is taken away from the clinical cell and allowed to focus on other things while the anesthetization takes place. This is all done while the machine monitors the child's breathing, something that would normally require a trained assistant, thus saving time and resources that could be used elsewhere.

Of course this does mean that by the time you get to the boss battle, you'll never...quite...get...