James Delahunty
28 Oct 2012 18:16
Hospital turns to gaming to help kids calm down.
Boston Children's Hospital is to publish results of a study into using a video game to help kids control their anger. The study involves children with serious anger management issues, and aged between nine and seventeen years.
They are split into two groups, both receiving typical anger management treatments, but only one of which using a video game called "Rage Control." While playing the game, a device on the player's finger monitors heart rate. If it gets too high, the player loses the ability to shoot at enemy spaceships, and must calm down in order to regain it.
"The connections between the brain's executive control centres and emotional centres are weak in people with severe anger problems," said senior investigator on the study, Dr Joseph Gonzalez-Heydrich. "However, to succeed at Rage Control, players have to learn to use these centres at the same time to score points."
The group playing the game were only required to do so for 15 minutes at the end of each session. After just five sessions, those who had played the game were better at keeping their heart rate down, and showed better scores on a recognised rating scale for the severity of anger issues in kids.
The hope is that children who try therapies like this will be able to learn to calm down in other life situations as well.
The results of the study are set to be published in the journal Adolescent Psychiatry.
See the Hospital's Press Release: childrenshospital.org