Diane Gromala, a professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver has discovered something remarkable about those who suffer from chronic pain: that there is a more effective option than drugs that you and I are already very familiar with. Hopefully more familiar with than drugs, but I’ll try not to assume.

Controlled experiments consistently show subjects who are distracted in a fully-immersive virtual reality world, such as a three-dimensional skiing adventure computer game, report less pain than their counterparts using drug-based pain therapy.

None of this surprises me, actually. I find that when I’ve got any kind of pain, gaming will make me forget it’s going on. Until I leap up in frustration while playing Viewtiful Joe and sever my own spinal cord before falling to the floor as in a boneless heap.

But seriously, folks, those of us who know and love people who suffer from chronic pain owe it to them to push game systems on them. I sense a surge in sales of Brain Age coming on.

Source: Canada.com via Game|Life. Image from Wikipedia.