Technology doesn’t only steal our right to privacy, doesn’t only kill language and sets out new barriers of communication they paradoxically call pathways, but also develops new programs that could help people who face mental disorders. A “brain training” iPad game developed and tested by a team of researchers at the University of Cambridge may improve the memory of patients with schizophrenia, helping them in their daily routine at work.
Schizophrenia is one of the most degrading affections, being defined as a long term mental health condition that causes a wide range of psychological symptoms, varying from changes in behavior through to hallucinations and delusions. Psychotic symptoms are relatively well treated by current medication but patients are still left with severe cognitive impairments and are frequently unable to return to university or work.
However, a new study published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, revealed that 22 patients who played the memory game made fewer errors and needed significantly fewer attempts to remember the location of different patterns. They were also found to have improved their scores on the Global Assessment Functioning Scale, which doctors use to rate the social, occupational and psychological functioning of adults.
The game is highly efficient for patients who suffer from schizophrenia and enjoyable as well. Patients reported that they were motivated to play it across eight hours of cognitive training.
Experts who later researched the impact of the game said patients who played it made fewer errors in tests afterwards, on their memory and brain functioning. The specially designed iPad game can make people better function in the real world.
“Because the game is interesting, even those patients with a general lack of motivation are spurred on to continue the training”, experts declared.
When it comes to schizophrenia, symptoms and behaviors are under the threat of extreme degradation, leading to poorly adapted individuals who cannot cope with the reality they live in. As far as the present study is concerned, the memory game can help where drugs have so far failed. The game is highly interesting so even those patients with a general lack of motivation are driven to continue the training.
The brain training app helps people with schizophrenia and on the other hand offers added value to the manipulative technology that arises nowadays. It is highly promising to see that our internal forces and our drive to evolve are used at an efficient level, guided towards helping others rather than stealing their money or rights to privacy.
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