Patients Are Powerful

Posts Tagged ‘GRAP’

As a chiropractor and a passionate healthy lifestyle advocate, high on the “health do to list” that I give to my chiropractic patients, young or old, is to stop smoking! And, though I know from experience that patients are powerful when supported and encouraged, I also know that different people respond to different stimulus, especially when they are trying to give up an insidious habit like smoking cigarettes. So, I was particularly happy to read on Discovery News (link below) about a virtual reality video “game” that, according to a new study published by the journal Cyberpsychology and Behavior will help people to stop smoking. I’d never really considered a video game to work so impressively as a patient advocate.

Researchers from Canada’s GRAP Occupational Psychology Clinic and the University of Quebec in Gatineau divided 91 smokers into two groups and enrolled them in a 12-week anti-smoking support program. In addition, each group played a specially designed video game four times a week. After entering a computer-generated virtual environment, one group of participants chased down floating cigarettes and crushed them while the other group crushed floating balls.

The study’s findings showed significant reduction in nicotine cravings among smokers in the cigarette-crushing group. At week 12, 15 percent of the cigarette crushers had abstained from smoking, compared to just 2 percent among the control group. During a six-month follow-up, while 20 percent of  ball crushers reported not smoking during the previous week, that rate reached 39 percent among the cigarette-crushing group.

The researchers were unsure as to why the cigarette crushers’ had a higher success rate, but they speculated that the virtual exercise may have further motivated their meeting attendance, as well as boosted motivation to quit smoking and increased confidence in the ability to kick the habit. The game also may have provided participants with positive associations to fight off urges, i.e., crushing cigarettes in the virtual reality environment may have conditioned smokers to resist their urge to light up.

For more on the study and a link to the GRAP’s study, visit Discovery News

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