Tetris used to prevent PTS symptoms

Although it has long since been made obsolete as a video game, Tetris hasn't lost its popularity in the past three decades. Scientists have now discovered that the game can be used for therapeutic purposes.

Professor Emily Holmes of the Swedish Karolinska Institutet’s Department of Clinical Neuroscience has published a study showing that Tetris therapy can reduce the psychological consequences of post-traumatic stress disorder. After a long study of the medicinal qualities of this type of entertainment, she concluded that colors, shapes and movements within the game had a positive effect on people who had suffered a traumatic experience, to a greater extent than other games.

Her team used the Tetris therapy on patients admitted to hospital following traffic accidents. The injured patients were first asked to visualize the accident and then started playing the game. It turned out that 20 minutes of playing Tetris was enough to prevent the creation of disturbing memories.

– Our findings suggest that if you engage in very visually demanding tasks soon after a trauma, this can help block or disrupt the memory being stored in an overly vivid way – Holmes says and adds that there is a roughly six-hour window of opportunity after a traumatic event to intervene, as BBC reports.

The study has shown that the patients who played Tetris were less prone to flashbacks. Holmes emphasizes that further tests are needed before this type of therapy could be implemented in hospitals.

Tetris

video games

video game

using Tetris as therapy

Emily Holmes

Karolinska Institute

Tetris therapy