Video Games and Surgery

I'd written in July a post title Cancer Fighting Video Game that was about how a video game was used to educate children about cancer.  I'd had a number of parents who'd emailed me after that as they'd found the info useful and their children had found the game to be both entertaining and informative.

So I thought I'd post this evening about another video game story and children awaiting surgery.   I read the article on CNN and it provided some pretty interesting (although not surprising I guess) info on a limited study that was done.

Letting children play video games on a Game Boy in the operating room before undergoing surgery can help relax them better than tranquilizers or holding Mommy's hand, researchers say.

The article points out that kids totally block out their surroundings and situation when they are playing with their GameBoy. Is this normally a good thing?  In limited amounts no problem, but you can see how it could distract them from important things like chores, homework and listening to mom & dad.   But for a child who is going into surgery it is a scary thing.  They experience a lot of anxiety and it seems that portable gaming allows them to overcome that anxiety.

They...

...studied 4- to 12-year-olds in three groups of 26 children each. All had parents with them in the operating room until they were anesthetized. One group also got a tranquilizer, and the third group played with a Game Boy.

On average, the Game Boy group showed no increase in anxiety before surgery. But on a standard, 100-point scale for measuring preoperative anxiety, the tranquilizer group jumped 7.5 points and the parents-only group 17.5 points.

Video gaming over having to give children a tranquilizer - to me that sounds like a good idea.
If you want to read the who article just click here.

Comments

i think that when i come back

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So are you meaning to say that when they are going for a medical surgery and need to distract they should be allowed to play with such stuff?

[WoW Account]

Yes every child has different perceptions and therefore they react differently to circumstances.