They sometimes get bad press, considered too violent, stupid or addictive.
Video games are, however, much more than that.
They cross the boundaries of entertainment, and have become, for some, health aids.
Therapeutic video games, imagined in a care approach, are offered to patients with, for example, motor disorders or degenerative diseases.
Memorization, reasoning and strategy
To talk about video games and health, the guest of our
Minute Papillon podcast!
is now the doctor Hélène Cassoudesalle, university lecturer, hospital practitioner, head of clinic in the "Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation" department of the Bordeaux University Hospital.
His research focuses on the study of cognitive dysfunction after brain injury.
In this interview, she explains the interest of these video games for health professionals.
What does video game rehabilitation look like?
Are there major differences between consumer video games and therapeutic ones?
Who are these therapies for?
“We work a lot with patients who have neurological disorders, following a stroke for example, reports the doctor in this podcast.
This can lead to cognitive difficulties, difficulties with attention, memory, reasoning and strategy, or purely motor difficulties.
In a virtual environment that recreates a supermarket, we will give [the patient] a shopping list, and he will have to walk around the supermarket, stop at the right aisle to find the right item on his shopping list.
»
The virtual task, seemingly banal, involves many functions, explains the doctor.
There is, in particular, the memorization of the shopping list, and the ability to check this list.
“I remember a patient, who at the beginning [of the treatment] went back and forth between the departments, because he had difficulties with organization and strategy.
It took him two hours to manage to take five products on his shopping list.
After three to four weeks, it took 20 minutes for the whole list,” says the doctor.
Listen to the rest of this interview with doctor Hélène Cassoudesalle in the audio player above.
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