Video Games May Save Your Life
| Adam Bruno |
You read me right. Seriously, video games may play an important role in health care, both now and in the future. And the best part of it is, it all looks surprisingly fun. Several studies have already been conducted to link gaming to fitness and health awareness, and I’m sure more are on the way. Take a look at a couple of them!
PharmExec.com published an article claiming that video games can promote awareness and healthy behavior in children and adults alike. There are custom games like Hope Labs Re-Mission, a game for teens where the player controls a microscopic robot named Roxxi who blasts away at malignant tumors in cancer patients. In this game, players also work on managing the side effects of the cancer and treatment.
Does that game not sound like a best-seller to you? Okay, what about Dance Dance Revolution? The Mayo Clinic ran a 24-week study on overweight children playing DDR and found that not only did most of them not gain weight, but their stamina, blood pressure, and overall fitness improved significantly.
Obviously, games designed to improve health care need to be fun as well as informative. Hell, there are crappy games all over the place that don’t provide even a single tidbit of useful information. But if developers manage to make a video game that can stand up to critics on its own merits, I for one will cheer all the louder if it possesses some redeeming value.
I’m not expecting games like God of Chores (well, actually, that’d be pretty cool…), but maybe something a bit more integrative and stimulating than the Reader Rabbit stuff that I grew up with. Something like a more medical-based version of Bookworm Adventures. Just a thought.
Hopefully, we’ll see more of this in the future. Because our health care system sucks right now as it is.
Source: PharmExec.com
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Posted on 08/5/09 at 8:51 pm 2 Comments »
August 6th, 2009 at 10:26 am
I’ve always known that DDR is a health benefit! Actually, once upon a time, the Challenge mode used to be called SSR: Step Step Revolution. THEN they changed it to Diet Mode, and then, just to be polite, Workout Mode. Almost all home versions of DDR in the States let you track your estimated KCal count when you play, based on your weight, height, and, of course, how well you do when you play.
Plus, there are all kinds of other arcade games that are motion-sensitive and require lots of movements: I used to play a rousing round of DDR followed by some hearty Police 911 2. My legs would be sore as heck by the end of the night, but at least I know they’re healthy legs!
August 6th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Certainly seems worth the time to play certain games if one can get the additional benefit. The “health” genre in gaming has slowly evolved over the years; it seems totally plausible that nowadays that there is a noticeable effect.