Fact: Recent research shows that playing Tetris can help resolve a problem for some children — lazy eye, or amblyopia.
The usual treatment for lazy eye in kids is wearing an eye-patch to correct the alignment of the wayward eyeball. This can take a long time to have full effect and, more obviously, gives the wearer a pirate-style look which may not be every child’s cup of tea! Additionally, the patch doesn’t work for adults.
www.lollipopkidsparties.com
Researchers in Montreal have discovered the Tetris works to correct the visual problem much faster, and with no fashion faux pas.
“The new treatment involves setting up the video game of Tetris so it can only be played effectively using both eyes. […] The researchers split the image between the eyepieces of a pair of head-mounted video goggles so that one eye could only see the falling pieces and the other eye could only see the pieces sitting at the bottom of the screen. […] After playing Tetris that way for an hour a day for two weeks, nine adults with lazy eye showed a big improvement in the vision of the weaker eye and in their 3D depth perception, the researchers reported in a paper published this week in the journal Current Biology.”
This fascinates me, Sarah! As someone who sported the pirate look on and off (unfortunately mostly off) for years as a child I would love to try this. The patch solution didn’t work for me – partly because I didn’t wear it enough, and partly because both my eyes are capable of wandering (although it’s most often the left.) Who knew playing a fun game could help!
How interesting! Perhaps you should volunteer as a guinea pig if they need more participants in their trials 🙂 – Sarah