More Video Game Brain Health Benefits

Antique media such as Television and Magazines, regularly publish and broadcast anti video game propaganda in spite of the beneficial findings reported repeatedly by the scientific community.

Here is one such story that you will not hear much about anywhere else but on the internet.

Image courtesy of: USC Institute for Creative Technologies

Healing games: Therapy and entertainment go hand in hand

For all the entertainment video games provide, their technology also holds promise for vanquishing some real world enemies — such as (in the game Virtual Iraq) post-traumatic stress disorder.

Benifits are not just limited to adults…

Mental health: CyberLearning Technology’s S.M.A.R.T. BrainGames system is designed to improve the focus of kids with ADHD.

And positive benefits are not just limited to brain function…

Physical therapy: An interdisciplinary team of researchers at USC is developing interactive games employing such items as special goggles, high-tech mitts, pinching devices and a pencil-like stylus that can be worn or grasped to add the sense of touch to the 3-D experience.

Rehabilitating people with serious injuries…

Patient treatment. The U.S. Navy is testing Sony’s Eye Toy, a camera that connects to the PS2 and transfers the person’s image onto a TV screen, along with the interactive dance mats used for the game Dance Dance Revolution, says the project’s principal investigator, Mark Wiederhold of the Virtual Reality Medical Center in San Diego. The idea is to create special programs to help rehabilitate soldiers injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As a learning tool to help develop advanced skills…

Training. U.K.-based Blitz Games is developing Interactive Trauma Trainer, a PC game-style simulation program to help prepare battlefield surgeons for decision-making and treatment in combat.

Another program being tested, New Dawn Estates, a role-playing simulation developed by pullUin Software of Vermillion, S.D., helps certified nursing assistants learn nursing-home treatment protocols.

As a teaching aid…

Prevention and education. The Federation of American Scientists and Brown University have created Immune Attack, a 3-D game about the immune system to help high school and college students better understand the complex subject.

Gaming can be good for ALL of us!

Public health: The University of Illinois at Chicago is developing an online disaster simulation game for the Chicago Department of Public Health to train public health workers and allied health and service workers how to handle an aerosol anthrax attack.

So next time someone tries to tell you that video games are a bad influence on people, be assured that gaming can be good for you!

Video games ‘good for you’

US scientists have found that regular players of shoot-em-ups, such as Half-Life and Medal of Honor, have much better visual skills than most of the population.

The researchers have shown that gamers were particularly good at spotting details in busy, confusing scenes and could cope with more distractions than average.

The two scientists also found that with a little game playing the visual skills of anyone can be improved.

So, Game On!