I figure that the universe must be nudging me toward this nugget if I found the article on the New Scientist while hearing about it on G4′s coverage of the CES. Apparently – not only was Tetris useful in treating Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – but has also been shown to help treat head injuries. So – let this be a lesson to you – keep a Tetris app on your iPhone in the event you find yourself in a bar fight, spontaneous street hockey game or nasty Vespa accident.
Emily Holmes and colleagues at the University of Oxford theorised that Tetris would work like a “cognitive vaccine,” and immunise patients from future haunting memories of wars, crimes or accidents.
This isn’t the first time video games have been used to treat PTSD. Psychologists and computer scientists have successfully deployed virtual reality scenes to treat Iraq war veterans, months or years after their tours ended.
What’s different about Holmes’ approach is that patients play the game within minutes of a traumatic experience. Tetris is so engrossing and mentally taxing that geometric shapes replace images of exploding grenades, car crashes and human carnage, her team hypothesises.
This seemed to work, according to a preliminary study published today in the journal PLoS ONE. Forty volunteers, aged 18 to 47, watched graphic 12-minute clips of a surgery, fatal car crashes, and a drowning. A half-hour later, twenty of the participants played Tetris for just 10 minutes. The other half sat quietly for the same time period.
Volunteers kept a diary of their thoughts for a week and returned to the lab for a follow-up visit. Overall, the Tetris players experienced fewer traumatic flashbacks than the control group — three versus seven, on average.
It’s too bad ‘Bejeweled’ doesn’t have the same effect.
It is remarkable, rather valuable answer
Thanks for this useful article.
thank! for this news it’s a good infomation !