'Tetris Therapy' Prescribed To PTSD Patients

FoxNews.com:

The video game Tetris may quell flashbacks of traumatic events in a way that other kinds of games can't, researchers have found.

The curious effect might have to do with how the shapes in the game compete with images of a traumatic scene when it comes to getting stored in one's memory.

Read the whole story: FoxNews.com

Comments

[Max Shaw]

03:43 PM on 11/12/2010

Concentrating on other things that force brain activity to avoid traumatic flashbacks and mental images is nothing new. And to think their control study was Pub Quiz 2008...Many other games would have been very effective as well. Not to mention more interesting..

[czs5056]

02:01 PM on 11/12/2010

They couldn't get a better picture of Tetris?

[jwoolman]

03:33 AM on 11/12/2010

Tetris is definitely a great game, but they're wrong to think it's the only one that could work. They compared it against a "word" type game, when they should have compared it with the multitude of nonverbal puzzle games available. I deal with words all day long and always go for the nonverbal games myself. For example: match-3 games like Jewel Quest (I skip over the text parts...), Bejeweled on the computer; similar moving puzzle match games on video game consoles, including different takes such as Nintendo's Yoshi's Cookies; Boxxle and its other incarnations and predecessors such as Sokoban and Chip's Challenge (pushing boxes around to avoid obstacles and get them all stacked somewhere); the infinite number of shoot-the-bubbles or bricks or whatevers as they come down on you; or even the infinite number of solitaire games. The key is to avoid anything dealing with words, whole different area of the brain.

Tetris is a particularly good choice because in many incarnations, there are no interruptions with written or spoken words. I get annoyed even with the voice intoning "Excellent!" etc. after a particularly magnificent cascade of matches (mostly unplanned, to be honest...) in Bejeweled, which otherwise is purely nonverbal. Might be something for game developers to consider, allowing the option of totally nonverbal play - they usually allow you to turn off music/sound effects, but that's no fun. I just don't want voices.

[Vivian Alicia Evans]

01:38 PM on 11/12/2010

I too enjoy games like Tetris and now that I think about it it's probably because it relaxes me like no other verbal games. f&fed for the excellent analysis for why this game works for you and me.

[Jack Willson]

12:58 AM on 11/12/2010

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[Rena Lanford]

11:19 PM on 11/11/2010

It makes sense, for various reasons, such as the demand it makes of the player to focus, and the great disconnect it has to the traumatic events(not sure how that'd work if you watched someone die in a manner similar to Tetris). It requires more spatial thinking than it does calling back memories or any other sort of thinking.