Cambridge: Tetris gameplay treatment helps reduce traumatic flashbacks for frontline healthcare workers

A simple, digital intervention that includes mentally playing Tetris can dramatically reduce intrusive memories of trauma in a month, even to the point of being symptom-free after six months, new research has found.

Using ‘mental rotation,’ the treatment was also very effective at reducing the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) more generally.

The study, funded by Wellcome, offers potential to implement a highly scalable, low intensity, easily accessible, digital treatment that could transform how we prevent and treat PTSD for people worldwide who have been exposed to trauma.

The findings, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, are the result of a randomised controlled trial of 99 healthcare workers exposed to trauma at work during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Study co-author Charlotte Summers, Director of the Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Heart & Lung Research Institute and Professor of Intensive Care Medicine at the University of Cambridge, said: “Every day, healthcare workers across the world are recurrently exposed to traumatic events in the course of their work, impacting the mental and physical wellbeing of those who care for us when we are unwell.

“At a time when global healthcare systems remain under intense pressure, the discovery of a scalable digital intervention that promotes the wellbeing of health professionals experiencing work-related traumatic events is an exciting step forward.”

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