LEGO Builds Confidence in Young Patients Facing MRI Scans

For many children, the prospect of entering a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine can feel like stepping into a spaceship from a strange dream cold, loud, and claustrophobic. The scanner’s rhythmic clanging echoes through the room, and its narrow tunnel demands absolute stillness, even from the tiniest patients. For some, fear gives way to panic, and sedation becomes the only option. But across hospitals worldwide, something extraordinary is shifting this narrative. A humble LEGO model crafted with just 500 colorful bricks is helping children confront their fears, transforming what was once a source of dread into an opportunity for confidence, curiosity, and even joy.

This innovative LEGO MRI Scanner set, developed by the LEGO Group in collaboration with the Starlight Children’s Foundation and several global partners, has turned the tide of pediatric anxiety in hospitals. At Michigan’s Sparrow Hospital, sedation rates for young MRI patients have dropped by half since the introduction of the LEGO model. Across hundreds of medical centers worldwide from California to Copenhagen children are walking into scanning rooms with smiles instead of tears. The initiative, which has now reached more than one million children across 10,000 hospitals, is more than a philanthropic gesture. It represents a paradigm shift in pediatric medicine, where play is not just a pastime, but a profound tool for healing and empowerment.

From Clanging Tunnels to Calm Minds

An MRI scanner can look and sound terrifying to a child. The massive white cylinder, the motorized bed, the echoing bangs and whirs all of it creates an alien atmosphere. For adults, it’s merely uncomfortable; for children, it can feel like a scene from a science-fiction movie gone wrong. Traditionally, hospitals have relied on sedation to ensure children remain still long enough for clear imaging results. But as child life specialists and pediatric radiologists have long observed, sedation is often a symptom of fear rather than necessity.

Enter the LEGO MRI Scanner set a scaled-down, hands-on replica of the real thing. Designed to look and operate like its full-sized counterpart, it includes a patient bed that slides in and out of the tunnel, staff minifigures, and even tiny control panels.

Image source: Website @Lego

Hospital engineers often mount these sets on platforms, gluing down all but the movable bed to keep the models sturdy. The result? A perfect miniature that demystifies the scanning process before a child ever steps foot into the real MRI room.

“Understanding that it’s not going to hurt you, that you just have to hold still through our explanation and the LEGO model, kids can figure it out,” said Kelly Hebert from Sparrow Hospital. The results speak for themselves: within a year of introducing the program, Sparrow reduced pediatric sedation for MRIs by approximately 50 percent. Similar results have emerged at Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento and hospitals throughout Europe. A study by the LEGO Group found that 96% of healthcare professionals observed reduced anxiety in young patients using the model, and nearly half reported a drop in sedation or anesthesia use. Fear, it seems, can be dismantled brick by brick.

Turning Anxiety into Understanding

To outsiders, the idea that a toy could ease medical anxiety might sound whimsical. Yet psychologists have long known that play is a child’s natural language for understanding the world. Through role-play and hands-on experimentation, children test boundaries, interpret unfamiliar experiences, and develop emotional resilience. This concept, known as “play-based learning,” is the foundation upon which the LEGO MRI Scanner initiative is built.

When children engage with the model, they aren’t just playing they’re rehearsing. They’re practicing what it means to lie still, listening to the sounds the machine makes, and exploring what happens next. In psychological terms, they’re creating “cognitive scaffolding” a framework that helps them predict, process, and manage stressful experiences. Once the unknown becomes familiar, fear loses its grip.

Sara Anderson, manager of integrated therapies at Sutter Medical Center, describes it beautifully: “Play is one of the most important ways for children to learn, to process, to express themselves. One of our main interventions here is play.” She explains that when a child manipulates the LEGO scanner, “they become the master of what’s going on and what’s happening to them.” That shift from feeling powerless to feeling in control is the emotional turning point that transforms a traumatic medical encounter into a manageable one.

The LEGO Foundation’s accompanying educational videos train healthcare professionals in how to guide these play sessions without taking over. Adults are encouraged to follow the child’s lead, allowing their imagination to direct the experience. Through this dynamic, play becomes both a learning tool and an emotional lifeline a bridge between fear and understanding.

Stories From the Hospital Floor

Statistics are powerful, but it’s the stories that show the true heartbeat of the program. In Lansing, Michigan, four-year-old patients who once trembled before an MRI now walk in with curiosity, clutching their own miniature LEGO beds. In Sacramento, eight-year-old Jaxon, who battles a rare form of cancer called BCOR sarcoma, used the model to prepare for his first MRI. His mother, Brianna Dwonch, recalls how the play set made all the difference: “Having a tangible toy that he could see and understand this is what I’m going to be doing was so beneficial for him. He wasn’t afraid because he knew what it looked and sounded like.”

Over in Edinburgh, five-year-old Ivy faced a similar journey. After being anesthetized for her first MRI, her family and doctors introduced her to the LEGO MRI model before her second scan.

Image Source: Website @LEGO

This time, Ivy entered the machine wide awake and calm. “If we hadn’t played with the LEGO model beforehand, I think she would have had a full meltdown,” her mother Rachel said. “It helped her understand what to expect and took away any nerves. Everything went smoothly.” Ivy herself summed it up in simpler terms: “I liked playing with the LEGO toy. It made me feel relaxed. I wasn’t scared. I was brave.”

These individual victories, repeated across hospitals from Denmark to the U.S., show the model’s power to reshape the hospital experience. At Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, play specialists use the sets daily to build rapport and prepare children for scans. “Everyone knows and loves LEGO,” said senior play specialist Emily Stone. “When I walk into a child’s room with it, it instantly makes them feel at ease. It gives us an opportunity to describe the noise, the process, and show that nothing touches them. It changes everything.”

From a Danish Workshop to a Worldwide Movement

Image Source: Website @LEGO

The LEGO MRI Scanner program began humbly in 2015, when LEGO technician Erik Ullerlund Staehr handcrafted the first prototype with Odense University Hospital in Denmark. The idea was simple: use play to turn anxiety into understanding. What started as a volunteer effort quickly grew into a formal partnership between the LEGO Group, the LEGO Foundation, and nonprofit organizations including Starlight Children’s Foundation, Fairy Bricks, and United Way. By 2022, hospitals worldwide could apply to receive the sets, and within three years, more than 10,000 had been distributed across 13 countries.

The model itself may be small just 13 centimeters wide but its reach is monumental. Each set comes with educational materials and training videos for healthcare teams, ensuring it’s used as a structured learning tool rather than just a distraction. The LEGO Foundation collects data from participating hospitals, refining the program based on real-world feedback. Across every country, the outcomes are consistent: calmer children, reduced sedation, and families who report feeling more connected to the care process. In some hospitals, sedation rates for pediatric MRI scans have dropped by as much as 50%, freeing up resources and reducing risks.

The initiative has also inspired a broader conversation about play in medicine. Hospitals are beginning to integrate play-based preparation not only for MRI scans, but for blood draws, surgeries, and chemotherapy. The concept is simple yet revolutionary: when children can understand and rehearse what’s going to happen, their anxiety plummets, and their cooperation rises. As LEGO Foundation Play Specialist Dorthe Feveile Kjerkegaard puts it, “Through play, we make the unknown familiar. And when the unknown becomes familiar, it becomes safe.”

A New Prescription for Play

The success of the LEGO MRI Scanner set reveals a deeper truth about healing one that transcends technology. Medicine has always focused on the physical body, but emotional safety is equally crucial, especially for children. The MRI project demonstrates that empathy and creativity can coexist with science, and that sometimes, the smallest tools can have the biggest impact.

The LEGO Foundation and its partners are already exploring new ways to bring play into medical preparation, from sets that explain surgeries to interactive virtual-reality experiences that simulate hospital visits. The goal is to give children agency in their own care, helping them feel like participants rather than patients. As Diana Ringe Krogh, Vice President of Social Responsibility at LEGO, notes, “Our MRI Scanner set shows how a simple act of play can have a big impact. By giving children the opportunity to explore, ask questions, and play their way through a medical procedure, we’re helping them feel safer and more in control.”

For families, the difference is profound. Parents who once dreaded the ordeal of watching their child sedated now see them approach the MRI with confidence. Hospitals save time and resources. And for the children who leave the scanning room clutching bravery certificates and LEGO smiles the experience becomes a story of triumph rather than fear.

Building a Braver Future

The story of the LEGO MRI Scanner is a testament to the power of empathy engineered through imagination. It’s a reminder that healing isn’t just about medicine it’s about understanding, connection, and trust. For over a million children worldwide, a set of colorful bricks has turned an intimidating medical procedure into a moment of empowerment.

In a world that often overcomplicates care with machines and metrics, this initiative stands out for its simplicity. A toy. A story. A shared moment of play. These are the tools helping children face their fears with courage and grace. What began as a small volunteer project in Denmark has become a global movement proof that even in the most clinical of settings, humanity and creativity can flourish side by side.

The LEGO MRI Scanner reminds us that fear shrinks in the face of understanding and understanding often begins with curiosity. By giving children the tools to explore and imagine, hospitals are building something far more valuable than clear MRI images. They’re building courage, one tiny brick at a time.