Gaming Helps Wonky Eyes - Official!
Amblyopia (a lazy eye to you and me) helped by playing shooters
If you could read the third line, sir.
According to a new study from the University of California, playing games can be good for you. Well, they can possibly help sort out a lazy eye anyway. Not exactly curing the common cold, but good news about games is hard to come by.
Amblyopia is normally the domain of children seen wandering around with a patch over their eye like a tiny pirate, though this often isn't an option when it comes to adults who suffer from the condition. Occlusion therapy generally doesn't work for anyone over the age of eight, so many doctors don't bother with treating anyone affected who are over that age. However, Dr Dennis Levi, the founder of the study has noted an improvement amongst adult gamers.
After getting participants to play "an action game involving shooting at targets or a non-action game requiring that players construct something", researchers discovered that there was a marked improvement in their depth-perception and visual acuity. Not bad for a few hours of levelling up in Call of Duty.
Dr. Roger Li, the study's lead author, stated that “This study is the first to show that video game play is useful for improving blurred vision in adults with amblyopia. I was very surprised by this finding; I didn’t expect to see this type of improvement.” Always nice to be surprised, hey?
While this won't see the immediate installation of consoles in your local branch of Specsavers, it's certainly good to see that something good has come from gaming as opposed to the usual "games are bad for you" argument. Next time someone tells you that you've been playing too much Battlefield 3, tell them that you're doing medical research.
Source: The Third Age
Amblyopia is normally the domain of children seen wandering around with a patch over their eye like a tiny pirate, though this often isn't an option when it comes to adults who suffer from the condition. Occlusion therapy generally doesn't work for anyone over the age of eight, so many doctors don't bother with treating anyone affected who are over that age. However, Dr Dennis Levi, the founder of the study has noted an improvement amongst adult gamers.
After getting participants to play "an action game involving shooting at targets or a non-action game requiring that players construct something", researchers discovered that there was a marked improvement in their depth-perception and visual acuity. Not bad for a few hours of levelling up in Call of Duty.
Dr. Roger Li, the study's lead author, stated that “This study is the first to show that video game play is useful for improving blurred vision in adults with amblyopia. I was very surprised by this finding; I didn’t expect to see this type of improvement.” Always nice to be surprised, hey?
While this won't see the immediate installation of consoles in your local branch of Specsavers, it's certainly good to see that something good has come from gaming as opposed to the usual "games are bad for you" argument. Next time someone tells you that you've been playing too much Battlefield 3, tell them that you're doing medical research.
Source: The Third Age