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Video Game-Like Programs Could Treat Schizophrenia
derGoldstein writes "Discovery is pointing to an ongoing study by Sophia Vinogradov, professor of psychiatry at UC-San Francisco, who is 'trying to determine whether computer-based cognitive remediation, a type of brain training through video game-like programs, is effective for treating schizophrenia. ... In a handful of blinded and randomized trials with computer-based training, Vinogradov has reported cognitive improvements for both recently diagnosed patients and those living with the disorder for several years. So far, treatment — such as 50 hours of training over a 10-week period — has shown great promise for patients when compared to control groups.'"
A Staten Island boy, whose father burned his hands on the stove and then tossed him naked into an oven, begged a Staten Island judge on Friday to go easy on his father. The youngster's emotional appeal worked.
... is giving him a second chance, will you? I just can't see my dad taken away from me. Right now I'm crying because he is the only dad I need."
"He made a big mistake, but really somewhere in his heart, he is funny, lovable, caring, and a great father," Chris Moss, 11, said of his father, James, who admitted to the horrific crime. "Everybody in my family
The Staten Island district attorney's office asked for the maximum sentence, seven years in prison, arguing that Moss inhumanely punished his son last year because he thought he stole $20 from his wallet.
Moss was sentenced to four months of weekends in prison at Rikers Island. The 53-year-old will also be put on probation for five years, must live away from his son for one year and take anger management classes.
"This court feels compelled to temper justice with compassion," said Judge Robert Collini, according to the Staten Island Advance. The judge said Moss had shown "uninhibited remorse," the paper reported.
Erin Moss told the court her husband of 24 years worked part time as a maintenance man and never complained about staying home with his two children as "Mr. Mom" while she studied nursing.
She said that on May 12, 2010, he "snapped and lost it."
Prosecutors say Moss beat the boy with a spatula, put his hands over two hot oven burners until the skin peeled, punched him in the face and then shoved him into an oven for several minutes.
"I'm going to burn you alive," Moss reportedly yelled, according to court papers.
He did not turn on the oven. The boy's hands were burned when his father held them over the burners.
Later, as skin peeled from the boy's singed hands, Moss refused to get his son medical attention, prosecutors said. The father ordered the boy to sit naked on the floor "like a dog," prosecutors said.
Erin Moss, who was not home at the time of the abuse, eventually took her son to a hospital, where the boy was treated for second- and third-degree burns and cuts.
If "DIscovery" is posting about this, then it's immediately suspect.
http://goatse.cx/
A blog post about mental illness and startups. In the case of some mental illnesses/conditions, behaviorism can play a bigger part than the chemistry. It's an absurdly difficult subject to research, and progress is slow, but mental illness is up there with obesity on the watch-list of developed-world epidemics.
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
Neuroplasticity-Based Cognitive Training in Schizophrenia
The voices in my head now tell me to shoot cyberdemons until they die instead of shooting the little grey men who are watching me from behind. Watching and waiting. Waiting... waiting... waiting...
How do you blind a study like this? What kind of control group would be fooled by a placebo (not playing actual video games)? These people would have to be crazy.
When do we start to hand out computer games to the Taliban/Al-Qaeda, Catholiban and their Israeli equivalents? In all cases including especially their spiritual leaders.
Maybe one day, if we allow us to see religion as the schizophrenia that it is (Notice that this does not contain a judgment. Schizophrenia is not exactly a choice. Given a bad enough situation, we all may not be able to live on without falling into it.), and those people as ill and needing help. But for that, one would have to understand them.. And then we couldn't hate them and wish them death anymore based on an ignorant armchair "analysis"... just like they do with us... which apparently is acceptable if one is the $good side. :/
P.S.: Posting anonymously only since 2009! (Because the modding system is fundamentally broken.)
Some computer games have helped children with Autism and others with ADHSD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Spectrum Disorder). I've seen what looks like FPS (first person shooter) simulations help returning soldiers with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and I've also seen (a lot) of physiotherapy done with wii-fit, including modifications to wii controllers for people confined to wheelchairs who have lost muscle tone, re-gain it by ...working out by playing games. Apparently they are 'way more fun' than the crappy 'move left, move right' exercises the physiotherapists have been offering in the past. As the parent may have alluded to, there is Neuroplasticity-Based Cognitive Training going on (something I remember from university psych classes, even though I graduated as a CS major). The long and the short of it is: "Yes sparky, you really can teach old dogs new tricks", and also "be careful what you read and be careful what you learn, you're rewiring you brain at every turn". It actually is an extension of what Henry Ford claimed: "Whether you think you can't or whether you think you can, you are right."
If using the proper probability value for such a small, and inadequate, sample there are no significant effects whatsoever.
The cognition training given only has video-game like rewards, there is nothing video game about it. Confounding factors which they did not mention are that the test group was exposed to one type of computer training with reduced and tightly controled stimuli while the control group played 16 different computer games with lots of stimuli and played several games every day. Computer time was only 1 hour a day. Any differences in their insignificant findings could be explained by rewarding focus.
Then again this probably just one of those papers written up to get more funding judging by their misleading use of statistics and their optimistic wording of the possible positive results if they just had more time and subjects as well as the statement that what is important is improving every day functioning and not scores on tests, n.b., both the test group and the control group showed improved daily functioning.
I could give a more detailed analysis of how wrong this all is but this is painful enough on my N900, anybody have a laptop/tablet they're giving away? How about a motherboard for a tx2500? A job reviewing grant submissions?
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
it doesnt matter if they cured cancer tomorrow. if it cost more than a few thousand dollars, most of the people on this planet could never afford it.
without health insurance, all of these wonderful medical breakthroughs dont mean anything.
Video Games can only affect people negativelly as scientists have proved and the bible says! Would someone think of the children!
My neurofeedback treatments for ADHD and depression are just like video games. They work like a charm for anxiety and migraines too.