{"id":744188,"date":"2026-08-20T15:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T15:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/744188\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T15:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T15:54:12","slug":"video-games-are-transforming-health-care-for-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/744188\/","title":{"rendered":"Video games are transforming health care for kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re like me, and you grew up in a house where your mom refused to let you get a video game console, because she believed sitting and staring at a TV was bad for you, you might think of video games as antithetical to health. And there is plenty of research about the ways in which gaming too much can harm your physical<\/a> and mental<\/a> well-being. I don\u2019t think anyone would argue that eight hours of Call of Duty every day is doing your body or your mind much good.<\/p>\n

But the old caricature of video games as simple brain rot is increasingly out of date. Even some normal, non-educational games can help with brain function<\/a> (as long as they are played in moderation \u2014 and some games are better than others).<\/p>\n

Beyond that, what if we could take something that is wildly popular (there are 3 billion gamers worldwide<\/a>, 190 million in the United States) and reimagine it in a way that goes beyond just entertainment? Gaming tech has advanced to the point that we can put people into hyperrealistic virtual realities or use AI to create new personalized gaming apps<\/a> with a brief voice prompt. These and other capabilities are unlocking new ideas from ambitious physicians and game developers that would have sounded like science fiction when I was a teen.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s increasing evidence that these platforms can be adapted to do genuinely incredible things to benefit our health. Here are just two ways in which video games are poised to change medicine \u2014 including one that allows any of us to game out in the name of advancing science. I can\u2019t wait to tell my mom.<\/p>\n

Video games could solve some big challenges in caring for kids<\/p>\n

My perspective on video games in medicine started to change when I learned about one specific use: as an alternative to anesthesia for children and adolescents.<\/p>\n

Here is a genuine clinical problem: For years, doctors have had few options beyond general anesthesia for kids who need to undergo imaging or minor surgeries. An MRI, for example, really only works when the patient is able to stay completely still and, as anyone who has spent a single minute around a child can attest, that\u2019s hard for kids to do. So, children have been put under during routine MRIs or minor procedures<\/a> that, when they\u2019re performed on an adult, require only local anesthesia or no anesthesia at all.<\/p>\n

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But giving children general anesthesia comes with health risks<\/a>. The FDA warns<\/a> against repeated or lengthy use of general anesthesia for children 3 and younger because of the risks to their growing brains and future learning development. Other studies have suggested<\/a> that general anesthesia also poses some risk to the development of older children, and its use should be minimized as much as realistically possible.<\/p>\n

Enter virtual reality video games.<\/p>\n

\u201cGames and VR can be especially effective for reducing pain and anxiety during pediatric procedures, including burn care, needle procedures, and other medical treatments,\u201d Dr. Kimberly Hieftje, co-director and co-founder of XR Pediatrics and the Yale Center for Immersive Technologies in Pediatrics, told me over email. \u201cIf we can help a child get through a procedure comfortably without sedation, that\u2019s a significant benefit. Sedation and anesthesia carry risks, and minimizing unnecessary or repeated exposure is particularly important in children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several small-scale studies have examined using virtual reality games as an alternative to general anesthesia for minor and routine surgeries and for MRI imaging \u2014 with promising results. In one 2024 experiment<\/a>, more than 100 kids (average age of 11) wore a mobile VR headset during a minor procedure (most frequently a hormone implant) and played a relaxing game such as Pebbles the Penguin (in which players navigate a snowy world and collect pebbles) or Space Pups (in which they play as a canine soaring through outer space and eating treats) while doctors performed the operation.<\/p>\n

The surgical team kept general anesthesia on hand in case it was needed, but none of the children involved in the experiment required it or any other kind of sedation. They were also able to follow simple directions from their physician during the procedure. Their post-surgery reports of pain were similar to patients who did receive anesthesia, and they had shorter recovery times.<\/p>\n

Likewise, a study out of Canada published in December 2025<\/a> tested how younger patients responded to VR as an alternative to anesthesia when they needed an MRI. It was a small study of only 18 patients, but, once again, the results were encouraging. The kids (average age of 5) went into a VR game prior to the MRI scan, learning about the procedure while collecting magic fairy dust. Then, they went into the actual MRI. And all of the kids who had played the VR game prior to the procedure were able to complete the imaging scan without any additional sedation or anesthesia.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

A young patient in Germany wears a VR headset to distract himself during a medical examination. Daniel L\u00f6b\/picture alliance via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The foundational idea here is: Kids are not little adults. It\u2019s harder for them to sit still. They get anxious about even imaging scans. \u201cWe create for adults and, then, put kids in it,\u201d Hieftje said, \u201cand we need to think backwards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Video games can help kids stay calm and stop moving \u2014 or, for kids with different medical needs, start moving. As any parent knows, children also aren\u2019t very good at following directions or being self-motivated to exercise \u2014 even if it would be good for their health, like if they have type-1 diabetes, for example. That\u2019s why a group of researchers from Yale, as described in a study published earlier this year<\/a> and which Hieftje co-authored, experimented with introducing kids with Type 1 diabetes to a virtual reality video game that coached them through exercises.<\/p>\n

It was a small group \u2014 17 adolescents of an average age of 15 \u2014 but patients who participated were motivated to play the game, followed through with their routines, and even registered a small but detectable decrease in their blood sugar levels. The researchers are hoping that larger studies could demonstrate the program\u2019s effectiveness and continue taking it mainstream.<\/p>\n

The list goes on: Hieftje said their work uses games and immersive technologies to address everything from substance use and human trafficking prevention to mental health, child loss and grief, and infection prevention for infants in a natal intensive care unit.<\/p>\n

But video games are doing more than changing clinical care for challenging patients. They are also unlocking the basic science that leads to new breakthroughs in treatment for everybody.<\/p>\n

Video games could allow all of us to contribute to future scientific advances<\/p>\n

When I think of massive multiplayer online games, I think of my friends and I camping out in somebody\u2019s basement to play Halo against strangers for hours on end. But Attila Szantner<\/a>, the co-founder and CEO of Massively Multiplayer Online Science, has found a more productive use for these remarkable platforms that can connect hundreds of people from all around the world.<\/p>\n

What his company has done, in tandem with academic scientists, is integrate important but tedious basic research tasks into the gameplay of popular commercial multiplayer games like Borderlands 3. When I attended the Aspen Ideas: Health summit this summer, Szanter presented a demo of one of his company\u2019s modules. What appeared to be players sorting colorful tiles in gameplay that would look familiar to anyone who\u2019s played Tetris, he said, was actually players \u2014 normal people with no special training \u2014 helping to sequence DNA samples for people\u2019s gut bacteria. Players in the game learn the task from a Borderlands character \u2014 including its ultimate scientific aim \u2014 and, then, complete the puzzles that the scientists have set up.<\/p>\n

\u201cGames are the absolute masters of engagement. They found the magic formula to make repetitive tasks feel fun,\u201d he said. \u201cIn citizen science, people have intrinsic motivation to help, but standard tasks get monotonous and people drop off. Games solve that completely.\u201d<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve turned the boring but vital work of number crunching and sequencing into gameplay \u2014 and convinced millions of their fellow citizens to help. In a paper published in October 2024 in Nature Biotechnology, Szanter and his co-authors described<\/a> a project that involved more than 4 million individuals completing more than 135 million science puzzles in order to align a million human microbiome sequences. They found that the players\u2019 collective contributions led to better sequencing than the current state-of-the-art computational methods. In another project,<\/a> they turned some basic cellular analysis tasks into gameplay on the multiplayer game EVE Online that, once again, performed better than what is now the standard.<\/p>\n

We have only scratched the surface of gaming\u2019s awesome potential. Clinicians are also optimistic about gaming\u2019s ability to preserve the cognitive health of aging adults and coach them through exercise routines (much like the kids in that Yale experiment), especially as the native gamer generations get older. Video games could revolutionize trauma care by placing burn victims inside of a cold VR environment<\/a> \u2014 and what if you could reduce PTSD by playing Tetris<\/a>? In 2020, the FDA approved the first video game for ADHD treatment: EndeavorRx<\/a>. Experts confronting a male loneliness epidemic believe<\/a> they can use video games to bring young men together. These programs could also transform medical training<\/a> and allow surgeons to preplan and practice surgeries<\/a> using their patient\u2019s unique data to produce a bespoke virtual reality practice module.<\/p>\n

The point is: The caricature of video games as a gateway to couch potato-itis is a relic of the past. Gaming could help all of us stay healthy \u2014 seriously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019re like me, and you grew up in a house where your mom refused to let you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[146159,102,2960,2453,650,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-744188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-good-medicine","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-innovation","tag-public-health","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}