As spotted by Polygon, The Canadian Press has a report on another potential use for video games as a form of treatment for certain medical conditions. In this case, researchers came up with a therapy for lazy eye – officially known as amblyopia – that requires patients to play Tetris.
Researchers at McGill University (Montreal) posed the therapy as an alternative to patching, which requires patients to wear a patch over their “good” eye to encourage the other to improve but only works on children and even then has limited success. The researchers found that compared with patching, this alternative Tetris therapy worked four times as well at improving patients' vision.
Of course, the therapy wasn't just about playing Tetris. The patients had to wear special goggles that showed different images to each eye; while their lazy eye could see the falling shapes, the “good” eye could only see the background. This way, the two eyes are encouraged to work together, but the lazy eye is still doing more work. As the lazy eye becomes stronger, the researchers could adjust the images so that eventually the contrast in the two eyes is the same.
The university has a patent for the therapy, and the researchers hope it'll become standard treatment for lazy eye. Given that it involves playing games (and replaces the need to wear a patch), I'm sure there are plenty of lazy eye sufferers out there who feel the same. Anyone out there with amblyopia think they'd give it a try?
