Classic video game that used Tetris to help NHS staff overcome the PTSD of dealing with Covid

The classic video game Tetris is being used to help NHS intensive care workers overcome the post-traumatic stress of dealing with Covid.

The popular game, which involves quickly rotating falling blocks to fit together, appears to activate a part of the brain that is also linked to traumatic flashbacks.

By deliberately recalling a disturbing memory and then playing a few rounds of Tetris, patients can train their brains to prevent “intrusive thoughts” from taking over.

Those who tried the therapy went from having fourteen traumatic flashbacks a week to just one.

Professor Emily Holmes from Uppsala University in Sweden said: ‘The aim of the intervention is to reduce the number of times intrusive thoughts enter your mind.

‘(Patients) consciously bring one to mind and learn to deal with it by using “mental rotation” while playing Tetris.

Stressed doctors suffered post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after dealing with endless casualties during the Covid pandemic

The famous block stacking game was found to activate the same part of the brain as intrusive thoughts, and could help PTSD sufferers suppress their symptoms

“We taught people not just to play, but every time a block fell, to use their mind’s eye to turn that block.

‘That requires a part of the brain that is also used for intrusive memories. So the game competes with the ability to recover that visual, sensory memory.

‘By holding the memory in mind and then focusing on the game, you are trying to compete with the unpleasant memory, so when it is reinstated in your mind it becomes less vivid.

‘If it’s less vivid and hyper, it’s less likely to be triggered in everyday life, so people have fewer intrusive memories of that type.

“You can change the number of times a memory comes to mind and prevent it from taking control of us.”

Designed by a Russian programmer in 1985, Tetris achieved international fame in 1989 with the Nintendo Game Boy.

It has since sold more than 520 million copies worldwide across platforms, making it the best-selling game of all time.

During the Covid pandemic, heroic frontline NHS staff treated a daily stream of seriously ill patients, many of whom died with terrible symptoms in isolation wards separated from their families.

Dr. Julie Highfield, clinical psychologist at Cardiff Critical Care and director of the Intensive Care Society, told Radio 4’s All in the Mind: ‘(Doctors) did their best to rally and get the job done, and quickly became overwhelmed. They were exhausted, at the extreme end of stress.

“People didn’t have their usual ways of coping, their usual outlets. They had to take time off and those who plowed on were left with a lot of difficult memories, complicated stories they carry in their minds, weighing them down and weighing them down.

‘People would have intrusive memories: pop-up images, fragments of memories that pop into their heads, making it difficult to work and affecting their thinking.’

Feedback from NHS workers who received the therapy was overwhelmingly positive, with some saying their post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) flashbacks were virtually eliminated.

An unnamed doctor said: ‘You’re getting therapy, but you don’t realize it. It was like I was in the situation again. I could hear the voices, I was surrounded by the scenario again. Then it just became images. Now it’s just a cloud, there’s nothing.’

Another said: ‘I was very sceptical, I didn’t think it would do anything, but it actually helped reduce the frequency of the memories.’

And another added: ‘I was so sad, but now when I’m tired I feel more comfortable and happier, more emotionally controlled.’

Professor Homes said suppressing flashbacks can also ‘rule out’ the other symptoms of PTSD, such as sleep problems, irritability, nightmares and depression.

Patients followed up for six months after therapy continued to show improvements in their condition.