Sunday, December 2, 2012
Video Games as Therapy
In contrast to all of the negative aspects of video games, especially video games and violence, there are new specially designed video games created with the intention of providing therapeutic services and studies show that these special video games do in fact show health-related benefits in patients dealing with certain illnesses such as depression, cancer, diabetes, asthma, autism, and Parkinson's.
http://psychcentral.com/news/2012/09/21/video-games-are-new-tools-for-health-care-providers/44943.html
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That is a pretty cool article. I think it is important that video games have a clear and almost instantaneous feedback mechanism in terms of rewards. That makes it easier to see progress, which can be a difficult things for like depression and cancer, in which the rehabilitation may be slow and tedious, and thus, you cannot see how much you are recuperating (more long term). But it is definitely a positive to see how the interactivity helps maintain brain health. Nintendo made that brain-training game which is a good way to keep people mentally sharp.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of therapy, I read an article a while back that showed a game taht helped children get through the difficulties of a divorce. I'll see if I can dig it up.