>I’m an MR tech and we sedate about 1 in 20 to get them into the scanner.
Another commenter has noted about the unpleasant sounds and ominous design, but I'm curious about your experience with other patient orientations - it occurred to me that a lot of the discomfort comes from going in head-first and on your back, that way you're losing any sort of autonomy.
I assume there are scans that require people be on their front and looking out from inside the machine (or otherwise able to see out of the machine directly rather than via mirror), do you find that patients for those procedures don't require sedation as often?
Breast MRI is usually done prone, and scans of the sternum or sternoclaviclular joints.
It doesn’t seem to make much difference, but maybe I just haven’t noticed? I did have someone who was too claustrophobic to have a pelvis scan request to go in prone (and look out). We for the scan but it was a bit compromised as the hip joints then moved with breathing.
Probably relevant, breast cancer and possible outcomes is a lot more scary than a sprained knee.
Some things that help include giving a mirror to see out, a blindfold or showing patients that both ends are open.
It’s definitely related to control somehow. Patients try to negotiate how far they go in or to come out for a few seconds. I always bring them out at that point, but once that starts it rarely ends with a complete scan.
Subjectively, the rate of claustrophobia is going up. This, despite scans getting quicker and scanners larger and more open.
Another commenter has noted about the unpleasant sounds and ominous design, but I'm curious about your experience with other patient orientations - it occurred to me that a lot of the discomfort comes from going in head-first and on your back, that way you're losing any sort of autonomy.
I assume there are scans that require people be on their front and looking out from inside the machine (or otherwise able to see out of the machine directly rather than via mirror), do you find that patients for those procedures don't require sedation as often?