Awareness games that reduce heart rate reduce rebellious behavior in children and adolescents

Psychotropic drugs and cognitive-behavioral therapy are effective for 'emotional dysregulation,' which is known as one of the neurodevelopmental disorders, but they have serious side effects, a high rate of discontinuation of treatment, and are linked to actual skills. There are various problems such as no. Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School have developed a game called 'RAGE-Control' that supplements existing treatments for 'affective dysregulation.' I succeeded in controlling 'anger' better than before.

Frontiers | A “Proof of Concept” Randomized Controlled Trial of a Video Game Requiring Emotional Regulation to Augment Anger Control Training | Psychiatry

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Researchers have developed 'RAGE-Control (R egulate A nd G ain E motion-Control) ' is a non-violent game that the space on the stage. Roughly speaking, it is a game like 'Space Invader', and the purpose is to operate the spaceship at the bottom of the screen, let the friendly spaceship pass as it is, and shoot and destroy the asteroid. The point is that if your heart rate exceeds the set baseline by 7 bpm, you will not be able to shoot the asteroid. For this reason, players are required to calm down.

The subjects of the study were 40 adolescents aged 10 to 17 who attended an outpatient psychiatric clinic at Boston Children's Hospital. Half underwent Anger Control Therapy (ACT) enhanced by 'RAGE-Control' (ACT-R group) and the other half underwent ACT with a fake version of 'RAGE-Control' (ACT-S group) .. The fake version didn't have a player's heart rate input, so you didn't have to keep your heart rate down to shoot the asteroid. 'RAGE-Control' was 3 minutes per round, and baseline heart rate was measured with a 30 second waiting time at the start of play.

In both groups, the evaluation was based on a 35-item questionnaire about the children's 'anger', behavioral evaluation by parents who accompanied the session, and severity evaluation by a clinician. Neither the subjects themselves, their parents, nor the clinicians were given information about which group the children belonged to.

As a result of the survey, the subjects themselves in both groups evaluated that their anger was 'reduced', and there was no significant difference between the two groups. However, the ACT-R group was found to have significantly improved aggression, resilience, and overall severity, as well as a lower median heart rate during the game.

The greater the decrease in heart rate, the less aggression and rebellious behavior was seen, so the research team focused on skills that enable control of heart rate, such as 'RAGE-Control'. He commented that he needed to explore more attractive games that he had hit.