CBS Minnesota reports that a donation of $1.5 million donation to the Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota by Horst Rechelbacher, founder of Aveda cosmetics, and his widow and business partner, Kiran Stordalen has been used to build a pain clinic unlike any other in the United States.
Dr. Stefan Friedrichsdorf, medical director of the department of pain medicine, palliative care and integrated medicine at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, says, “A typical hospital room, a typical clinic room – it’s just awful. There’s nothing you can do in there. It’s dangerous for them, and you come in this room and you just feel, ‘Ahhhhh.’”
The clinic combines aromatherapy and massage with pain psychology and play. The new sensory room is designed to stimulate all the senses for children with special needs.
The room encourages children to use their senses like touching, smell and hearing, and to be interactive. “Being able to actually control the world is for many of those children something ever so amazing,” Friedrichsdorf said.
Featured in the video about the new pain clinic is Kali, whom our readers met in a Little Stars short video late last year during a fundraising appeal. Kali, who underwent a lung transplant, has been treated at the clinic for years, but now it has a whole new look and smell thanks to Rechelbacher and Stordalen.
Talking of her late husband, Sotrladen said, “He’d be so thrilled and so impressed. This is exactly the kind of work I think he saw for his future.”
Click here to read the full story and watch the video.
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