Top Articles in Health Gamification for 2012

Gamification for Health in 2012

Just a few more left in our Best of 2012 series! This week we’re looking at some of the top articles for Health Gamification in 2012. We’re looking at a number of awesome little devices and programs to educate, assist, and protect the ill as well as those practicing medicine. Remember that the gamification health need not only apply to the sick; it is just as helpful for medical practitioners as well. It would seem that a number of the most popular articles were related to pediatric gamification, or simply, gamification targeted at children’s health.

Could Playing Video Games Improve Vision?

As it turns out,a woman named Daphne Maurer had seen the results of a previous study regarding how video games can improve normal vision in adults, which piqued her curiosity and inspired her to create a study implementing the use of first person shooters (FPS) to treat adults with cataracts.

Gamification Maker Faire 2012 Highlights – Jerry the Bear

Aaron Horowitz’s story of Jerry the Bear, is an excellent product in of itself and a testament to effective gamification design for helping children with Type-1 Diabetes learn and deal with their illness.

Keeping Medical Data Secure with Games in Health

As more practices adopt electronic health records, patient privacy and data security have become bigger challenges but a new game developed by the Health and Human Services Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology is helping teach health care employees best practices for protecting medical data.

Using Gamification to Curb Children’s Anger Issues

More often than not, children are unwilling to engage with psychotherapy to help them control their emotions. Jason Kahn, PhD, and Joseph Gonzalez-Heydrich, MD, created RAGE Control—a video game that could change the way doctors interact with children. Boston Children’s Hospital tested RAGE Control to assist children in controlling their emotions so that they can effectively use these skills in real-life situations.

Gamification Helps Patients Breathe Easier

Recent news has introduced the T-Haler, a training inhaler prototype that, according to the creators can increase proper inhaler use three-fold in just three minutes of training.

$100,000 Cash Prize Available for the Next Top Gamified Health App

What better way is there to entice gamifiers and game-designers to work than to hold a friendly competition? The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is holding a $200,000 competition to find the best game applications to improve individual and community health.