Tetris to the rescue of women who have experienced traumatic childbirth

Image: Alexander Grey (Unsplash) - Playing Tetris for fifteen minutes can prevent psychological trauma in mothers after a difficult birth: so suggests a large-scale study conducted at CHUV and HUG and published in Molecular Psychiatry. The study's findings pave the way for a routine intervention to prevent the development of symptoms of childbirth-related post-traumatic stress disorder. An international team from the University of Lausanne and CHUV has shown that a therapeutic activity involving fifteen minutes of the video game 'Tetris' could prevent the development of symptoms of childbirth-related post-traumatic stress disorder - or 'PTSD-A'. This large-scale study involved 146 women, half of whom played Tetris and half of whom completed a placebo activity within six hours of their emergency caesarean section. The results from the team led by Antje Horsch , Associate Professor at the University of Lausanne's Faculty of Biology and Medicine and Research Consultant at the CHUV's Département femme-mère-enfant, show that the Tetris group had significantly fewer symptoms of PTSD-A, up to six months after delivery. Tetris interferes with the memory consolidation of traumatic images. By engaging the 'visuospatial' region of the brain, responsible for vision and orientation in space, the game Tetris may interfere with the memory consolidation of traumatic images.