Page 688 - Total War on PTSD

Our Medical VR laboratory had its origins in the mid-1990’s and derived from my early clinical work in the area of cognitive rehabilitation following brain injury, stroke, and other neurological conditions. In the early 1990s, I had become increasingly frustrated by the limited state of cognitive rehabilitation. I believe this was in part due to the absence of technology that could be used to automate training and provide a more compelling experience that would engage patients in the many repetitive and boring activities needed to improve brain “repair” and recover functional abilities. Thus, a big part of the problem was seen in getting a patient to do a sufficient amount of focused cognitive rehabilitative training. I would tell my clients that if they wanted to recover their brain function and everyday skills, they would have to put in the same amount of effort into rehab exercises as they would to learn to play the violin!
However, one day the lightbulb went off thanks to one of my younger patients and his NintendoGameBoy. Iwasalwaysstruckbywatchingkidswhoplayedvideogamesfor hours on end and imagined, “What if you could get a patient engaged in similar well- produced sophisticated game-based content to do their rehab for that period of time?” Then one day, one of my patients came in with a new Gameboy and I watched him literally glued to playing the game, “Tetris” for more time that I was ever able to get him engaged with a traditional cognitive rehab task. If we could leverage the motivating nature of digital game technology, it might be possible to advance cognitive and physical rehabilitation following a brain injury. It would also be possible to systematically adjust the challenge level of the rehab activity in order to pace engagement with tasks presented at a level that was neither, too easy or too difficult for the patient and thus, keep them in what game developers call the “flow channel”. If one could design rehab games that were that motivating, yet still specifically targeted the
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