Video games such as first person shooter computer games, may be able to help rehabilitate patients with traumatic brain injury, a recent study suggests.
Dr Alexandra Vakili, a neuropsychologist at Australia’s Macquarie University, trained study participants on a first person shooter game, as well as taught them skills and strategies based on problems presented in the game, to see if the program would help improve their attention and ability to process information, explains a media release from Taylor & Francis.
The study, published recently in Cogent Psychology, suggests that the participants not only improved at the game, but were able to carry out some everyday tasks faster and more successfully than the control group, according to the release.
‘What we need now are larger randomized controlled trials in this area, to build on the positive results reported by the participants,” Vakili says in the release. “The potential that action gaming has to help this set of patients is really exciting.”
[Source(s): Taylor & Francis, Science Daily]