Video: Using ‘serious’ video games to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a debilitating condition that involves uncontrollable, obsessive thoughts. Apart from medication, exposure and response prevention (ERP) is a form of behaviour therapy used to treat OCD, where the patient is exposed to certain stimuli and is guided through the response to the stimuli. Scientists from Chung Ang University Korea and Stanford University School of Medicine used an ERP-based serious mobile video game that asks the player to make a short pause before completing a task in the game, thereby breaking the thought-action link and increasing the awareness of OCD among patients.

DOI of the manuscript: https://doi.org/10.1089/g4h.2017.0158