Video games as a complementary therapy tool in mental disorders: PlayMancer, a European multicentre study

Abstract

Background

Previous review studies have suggested that computer games can serve as an alternative or additional form of treatment in several areas (schizophrenia, asthma or motor rehabilitation). Although several naturalistic studies have been conducted showing the usefulness of serious video games in the treatment of some abnormal behaviours, there is a lack of serious games specially designed for treating mental disorders.

Aim

The purpose of our project was to develop and evaluate a serious video game designed to remediate attitudinal, behavioural and emotional processes of patients with impulse-related disorders.

Method and results

The video game was created and developed within the European research project PlayMancer. It aims to prove potential capacity to change underlying attitudinal, behavioural and emotional processes of patients with impulse-related disorders. New interaction modes were provided by newly developed components, such as emotion recognition from speech, face and physiological reactions, while specific impulsive reactions were elicited. The video game uses biofeedback for helping patients to learn relaxation skills, acquire better self-control strategies and develop new emotional regulation strategies. In this article, we present a description of the video game used, rationale, user requirements, usability and preliminary data, in several mental disorders.

Keywords:

• new technologies
• video games
• therapy
• mental disorders

Acknowledgment

Support was given by the PlayMancer project (FP7-ICT-215839-2007), which was funded by the FP7 of the European Commission. The authors wish to thank the European Commission as well as all members of the project consortium for their support. The project also received partial support from ISCIII (CIBER06/03, FIS PI081573). CIBERobn is an ISCIII initiative.

Declaration of Interest: None of the authors have conflicts of interest.