Playing the video game Tetris hours after a distressing incident may help prevent the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a new study has found. Researchers including those from Karolinska Institute in Sweden studied about 71 motor vehicle accident victims, of whom half received the intervention while waiting in the hospital emergency department.
Results showed that they had fewer intrusive memories of the trauma in total over the week immediately following the accident than others.
Post-traumatic stress disorder can affect people who have experienced war, torture, rape, road accidents or other kinds of situations in which they felt their life, or that of another person, was in danger, researchers said. The study was published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
