Using Games to Improve Medicine 122
miller60 writes "At GameJournalism.com we look at Games for Health 2004, a conference which will explore the use of interactive games in treating patients and training doctors. One presentation discusses "Glucoboy," a Gameboy based diabetes monitoring solution, while another looks at the use of video games in improving surgical outcomes. The event is organized by the Serious Games Initiative, among others."
Carcinoma Angels predates all this (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classi
Timothy Leary? (Score:5, Interesting)
Psychological Interaction Alter Ego (Activision by Dr. Peter Favaro) Two versions Female and Male were released. Mind Mirror (EA by Timothy Leary)
The new version is a PC game, the old classic I know and love comes on a little square of paper....
while it's not exactly medical... (Score:4, Interesting)
"Greetings, starfighter! You have been recruited by the star league to defend the frontier against Xur and the Kodan armada!"
Remember it? (Score:2, Interesting)
I bought it about a week ago and I hadn't seen it for over a decade before that. It's amazing to see that movie today and see just how good those graphics were! Holy cow! They're damn good even by today's standards!
I saw that within the last year or so, Tron 2.0 came out. I would love to see a modern game version of The Last Starfighter. Think about it. Multiplayer mode would rock! When I pick up the Death Blossom upgrade and you better just run, bitch!
Ignore trollish:MOD UP: Interesting link (Score:3, Interesting)
By accident as usual.
Is medicine a science or not? (Score:4, Interesting)
A few weeks ago I was shocked to hear on TV someone saying that he became a physician because he loved science. My reaction was 'If you loved science, why did you study medicine, instead of a science (biology, geology, physics, whatever)
For me a science is a branch of human knowledge which has the purpose of understanding how the world works AND USES THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD for achieving this purpose. The scientific method consists in making experiments and observations and in building theories which explain observed facts, leading to new experiments and observations which lead to new theories, etc.
The purpose of medicine is healing people, NOT UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD, and thus it is not a science. For a physician is irrelevant how a healing method works, the only thing that matters is that it works (and does not cause secondary damage). Lots of drugs have been used for centuries whitout knowing how they work. In this respect medicine is closer to religion or witchraft than science. It seems that medicine is some kind of engineering. Now and then physicians and engineers use scientific data for their jobs; however it is irrelevant whether some medical or engineering techniques have a scientific basis or not.
Although very important for understanding the world, mathematics is not a science because 1) it studies abstract notions and relations, not the world 2) it does not use the scientific method (no experiments or observations in mathematics, only theories).
Game or Simulation? (Score:5, Interesting)
At some point the task that a "game" like this is trying to accomplish makes it no longer a game because it is not really entertaining. It is instead a simulation that the person is using to practice their trade. At that point, calling it a "game" seems like more of a marketing move than anything else.
Of course if you really like what you do, it may still be entertaining for you to practice. For instance, I imagine a military flight combat simulator could be pretty fun, but I still wouldn't call it a game (unless perhaps when you killed an enemy it blew up like Han Solo's final tie kill).
Ben's Game. (Score:4, Interesting)
"Ben's Game" [makewish.org] just came across my desk, and as it's relevent, I tought I'd mention it here.
Ben is a 9-year old boy who had lukemia (now in remission) who had a wish: to create a videogame where he could fight his cancer.
Make-a-Wish foundation stepped up to the plate, and got some developers from LucasArts to make such a game.
The game is a free download. Apparently the USCF Children's Hospital is installing copies of the game in its pediatric ward for the children there to play. The game is quite well done. I can just imagine the health benifits for the child sitting the hospital on chemo yelling "Take that cancer!".
As HomeStar Runner [homestarrunner.com] would say, this kid has the heart of a champion. Way to go Ben!
Yaz.
Re:As a diabetic (Score:4, Interesting)
Then you could have the stats and behaviour of your characters in a MMRPG dependent on your own physique. Like paintball, only you could have more fantastic environments and far out plots. Trying to outrun the T-rex or that fireball? Then instead of pressing a button, start running! (Or at least wave your legs around in the air and hope no one is looking...). Since you are playing a hero, their speed would probably be two or three times your "real" speed, but still dependent on it. If it was possible to have resistance in the suit somehow without cables that the player would get tangled in, you could measure strenght as well. If you were in a swordfight with a pker, stamina, strength and actuall skill at something like fencing, kendo or iaido would matter. The reverse of today, where the best players only show their amazing ability to sit on their fat asses spawn camping and doing the level grind all day and nights.
Drawbacks - impossible or at least prohibitively expensive technology. A few gamers might start to exercise fanatically, but many more would just be uncomfortably reminded of why they are escaping into a fantasy world. All want to be sexy heroes, and most wouldn't want to play a game where they could be beaten up by a jock again, albeit in a virtual world.
A Healthy Dose (Score:2, Interesting)