Playing Tetris Right After a car Crash Could Prevent Traumatic Flashbacks: Study

By Krisana Estaura, | April 09, 2017

playing Tetris lessen the risk of developing intrusive memories among healthy people who had watched a traumatic video.

Playing the old-school video game Tetris for at least 10 minutes after a trauma exposure like a car crash may lessen the build-up of memory flashbacks, according to study.



According to The Telegraph, researchers from OxFord University and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden found that patients who were allowed to play the video game Tetris within six hours of admission following a car accident were far less likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).




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Tetris is a puzzle game developed in the 1980s where players aim to fit colorful blocks together. It is one of the most popular video games of all times.



"Our hypothesis was that after a trauma, patients would have fewer intrusive memories if they got to play Tetris as part of a short behavioral intervention while waiting in the hospital Emergency Department," said Dr. Emily Holmes, professor of psychology at Karolinska Institute's Department of Clinical Neuroscience.



Fox News reported that a separate study conducted by the same researchers found that playing Tetris lessen the risk of developing intrusive memories among healthy people who had watched a traumatic video. In the new study, Holmes and colleagues wanted to find out whether the findings from the lab settings could be translated into the real world.



To test the hypothesis, the researchers involved 71 patients who were admitted to the emergency room shortly after experiencing or witnessing a car crash. Half of them were asked to recall their experience shortly after playing Tetris for at least 10 minutes while the other half were used as a control group.



All the participants were required to keep a diary to record their flashback memories regarding the accident over the following week.



The results showed that victims who played Tetris have fewer intrusive memories of the trauma in total over the week immediately following the accident than those in the control group. Moreover, the study found that the intrusive memories diminished more quickly.

