29.03.2024

Unconventional Approach for PTSD May Expand Treatment Options

In a pilot research study, Swedish as well as german scientists discover playing a details video game in association with a behavior intervention program minimized the number of flashbacks associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

A group of researchers from Ruhr-Universität Bochum and also the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden used the video game Trelis, a tile-matching challenge video game, as a treatment amongst a team of 20 individuals hospitalized for PTSD. They discovered the variety of recalls for the demanding events lowered.

Teacher Henrik Kessler and Dr. Aram Kehyayan from the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and also Psychotherapy at the University Hospital Bochum, and Professor Emily Holmes, from the Karolinska Institutet, report their findings online in the Journal of Consulting and also Clinical Psychology.

Researchers clarify that of the most severe signs and symptoms of PTSD is the spontaneous recurrence of aesthetic memories of terrible experiences.

” PTSD can be dealt with well making use of the therapies offered,” said Kessler. “However, there are much more people than therapy places. That’s why the scientists are looking for techniques outside conventional treatments that can soothe the signs.”

About 10 years earlier, Holmes and her group discovered that the computer game Tetris can subdue flashbacks triggered by scary movies in healthy and balanced people when played shortly after seeing the movie.

In the present research study, the research study group examined whether this impact can likewise aid clients with PTSD, for whom the reason for the stressful memories mostly goes back years.

The research included 20 patients with intricate PTSD who were hospitalized for 6 to eight weeks for normal treatment.

Along with the usual individual and also group therapies, they also underwent a special treatment. This consisted of writing among their stressful memories down on a sheet of paper. They tore up the item of paper — without speaking about the web content — and also played Tetris on a tablet for 25 mins.

Over the weeks, people tape-recorded their various flashbacks– such as experiences of physical violence in different situations — in a diary. Then, the particular material of the recall was targeted in a consecutive way.

In doing this, researchers uncovered the intervention decreased flashbacks on the certain web content dealt with. The number of flashbacks continued to be fairly constant for the untargeted flashback components.

As the research proceeded, the various recall materials were targeted one after the other. Generally, the variety of flashbacks for the circumstances that were targeted dropped by approximately 64 percent.

Recalls for which contents were never targeted decreased by just eleven percent. The treatment had an overall impact for 16 of the 20 people tested.

The scientists presumed that the success of the approach is based on the complying with device: When people visualize the demanding memory thoroughly, the areas for visuospatial handling in the mind are triggered.

These exact same locations are likewise essential for playing Tetris. Both tasks for that reason need equivalent and also minimal resources, resulting in interference.

Whenever a person purposely remembers the material of a flashback, the linked memory trace ends up being briefly unsteady. If disturbance happens during this moment, the memory trace can be damaged when it is saved once again, resulting in less flashbacks, the researchers presume.

” In our research, the treatment was monitored by an employee, yet he did not play an active duty as well as did not check out the written stressful memories,” clarifies Kessler.

” Our hope is that we will be able to obtain a treatment that people can execute by themselves to help them deal, also if there are no locations offered for therapy. The treatment can not change complex injury treatment, but can only alleviate a central sign, flashbacks.”

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