Empathy, Diabetes, and Teddy Bears

So what does it mean for a teddy bear to create empathy?

Before I answer this question, let me give a brief overview of the problem. Children are most often diagnosed with type 1 diabetes between 3 and 7 years old. At this age, they cannot yet manage most of their own medical procedures, leaving them feeling like pincushions — entirely passive when receiving treatment. Oftentimes children don’t have any friends with type 1 diabetes, adding to feelings of fear and isolation.

Enter Jerry.

Jerry the Bear is a friend for these kids. He helps them cope emotionally with their diagnosis while building the skills needed for self care. As children learn to take care of Jerry’s diabetes, they learn how to take care of themselves. When children take care of Jerry, they experience “symptomatic boundary conditions” (when Jerry is either hypoglycemic or hyperglycemic) in a safe, simulated environment. By exposing children to these real life scenarios with Jerry, they begin to learn critical skills of symptom identification at an early age. After all, children naturally learn by doing, trying, failing, and adapting. Jerry provides a safe way to learn by experimenting and making mistakes that could otherwise be life threatening.

Kids relate to Jerry as a companion and feel personally responsible for his emotional and physical well being, a feeling unique among their dolls or other plush playthings. Jerry enables children to understand that their parents are only injecting and pricking them because they love them, just as children love Jerry. This creates a circle of empathy within families, involving children in their own care process.

The bond between a child and Jerry is important because it enables continued engagement, and thus continued learning. As a child plays with Jerry, they progress through a diabetes curriculum — picking up skills that range from carb counting to monitoring blood glucose levels.

Jerry’s diaries are critical to learning because it shifts the goal of the game from understanding diabetes, to winning the All Star Game. This might not seem like a big deal, but from a child’s point of view it is hugely impactful. Since learning about chronic disease management at a young age isn’t exactly the “coolest” thing to do, the aim of training for a competition ascribes an exciting purpose to this type of education. From a kids perspective, instead of needing to learn about carb counting to progress to the next level, they must meet up with Jerry’s friend the beaver to master archery!

We shipped our first production run of bears last Christmas and are thrilled to have reached 2% of kids diagnosed last year. Even more exciting is that 8 months later, families are still playing with Jerry for over an hour each week. This is quite powerful when put in the context with past research on gaming and diabetes. In 1995, a clinical study was conducted on a video game for children with type 1 diabetes called “Packy and Marlon.” The study took place over 6 months while children logged a total of 34 hours of play. This 34 hours of play reduced emergency hospital visits by 77% — equating to two less visits per year!

As we continue to develop Jerry’s content, we are eager to quantify how he can improve medical outcomes. But right now, to make Jerry the best experience possible, we are focused on the most important thing of all — our users.

To help us get a bear to each and every child diagnosed next year check out our crowdfunding campaign!

To hear how Jerry has changed the lives of our families watch this short video.