Train the Brain

      

       Schizophrenia is a mental disorder in which the person obtains inappropriate actions and feelings, often withdraws from reality and has delusions and hallucinations. People can live normal lives with schizophrenia, however, the hallucinations are better when tamed due to the fact that they can cause the person to harm themselves or others. There are multiple things recommended to tame the hallucinations, but did you know playing video games is one of them? Video games can actually help train the brain to control delusions and hallucinations. 

How Does This Work?

        I read about a study on BBC News where they had patients land a rocket back on earth in a video game to see if it could calm those with schizophrenia. They had the patients in an MRI Scanner to see which parts of the brain were being used. While controlling the rocket they were able to control the volume of the voices in their heads, basically controlling their hallucination. In the article it said that people with schizophrenia can normally tell when these "voices" are coming, so it is about getting them to be able to control the voices or stop them completely and thats what these studies have focused on. I'm sure this poses many questions in your head like, are there any medications for this? The answer is yes, there are things that doctors prescribe patients with to help with their hallucinations. However, there are still some people who are not responsive to the medications and still live in fear of their own thoughts everyday. Video games is not like a medication, it is like teaching your brain how to control or stop your hallucinations, which in the long run is a much healthier route to go. What the video game is doing is something years of medications could never do. 

Final Thoughts

       It is important to always explore and be open to different forms of treatment. Video games are often looked down upon and carry a terrible reputation, when in fact they have been proven to be extremely beneficial in many cases. It is easy to say video games encourage bad behavior, because searching for the real underlying problems would take up time and money. But, there are great methods that can be found and used to help with a lot of mental illnesses within video games and it is important to acknowledge that. 

Link:
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-43003378