A game to make burns hurt less
Burns are a particularly nasty and painful type of injury: the nerve endings are damaged, skin regrows tougher and tighter, and on top of this patients have to also deal with physical therapy.
A new game, called Snow World gets burn patients to play a 3D computer game in which move along a snowy path and fire snowballs at nonmoving target. What are the effects of this game? A recent report shows that patients playing the game report feeling less pain when playing, and more impressively also get a greater range of motion in their burnt limbs as their muscles relaxed. Finally, they also get less pain medication was also required, meaning patients were lucid for longer periods of time.
This is just great — and I wish I had this game when I was in hospital. Maybe we can find games for other issues as well (eliminating the pain of social rejection, losing money in the stock market….).
The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone - Especially Ourselves
Interesting final paragraph, Dan. I’ve been in news and media for years. Is there any research on this:
What if we thought of news as our video game? Would we feel less pain if newsrooms focused more on meaningful things that are working? And would that encourage us to behave in ways that help heal the economy?
Here’s an NPR story about West Philly kids who are out-engineering the pros in Detroit…
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/11/west-phillys-x-kids/
“eliminating the pain of social rejection”
They already have this. World of Warcraft.
Fascinating. I wonder if the positive results came because of the calm and chilly themes in the VR game? Or would any sufficiently engaging VR game have achieved similar results?
That part of your book was so scary and painful–hope there are discovered better methods soon.
Moo!
“Would we feel less pain if newsrooms focused more on meaningful things that are working? And would that encourage us to behave in ways that help heal the economy?”
Yes, we would. Personally, I do not watch sensational televised new at all. It is broadcast death, pain and misery for ratings sake. People can’t watch this and not be negatively effected. GIGO. Garbage in Garbage out.
If we spent as much time talking about and helping the companies that did well during our current crisis and less time rewarding and bailing out the failed business we would be in much better shape financially and mentally.
When the mind is focused outside of itself, of course inner discomfort or pain is reduced. I myself have felt stress recently for several reasons and have extreme headaches, I found when I went to an engrossing film my headache subsided, just to resume on my ride home. Very interesting..we all know the mind is he origin of so many things.
It is delightful
nteresting final paragraph, Dan. I’ve been in news and media for years. Is there any research on this:
What if we thought of news as our video game? Would we feel less pain if newsrooms focused more on meaningful things that are working? And would that encourage us to behave in ways that help heal the economy?