We not too long ago did an editorial about videogames being more than just fun and how they are actually helping people, and now another article has just come out detailing another new videogame which is actually helping young patients deal with serious burns.

From the article:

An article MedicineNet.com tells of young Nathan Neisinger who, at age six, spilled a pot of boiling pasta on himself, covering his chest and arms with serious burns. Nathan overcame a 60% chance of survival only to face three months of painful, daily wound cleaning and physiotherapy.

Pediatric burn patients often require non-medicinal pain control because drugs like morphine are too risky for use in young children. Nathan’s pain control came in the form of SnowWorld, a virtual reality game designed by Hunter Hoffman, the director of the University of Washington’s Virtual Reality Analgesia Research Center, located in Seattle.

SnowWorld uses a VR helmet and a one-handed controller to immerse patients in an artificial world where they fly through canyons of ice and chuck snowballs at snowmen and penguins. This helps distract patients from the pain of cleaning and stretching of tender skin.

Read the full article over at gamepolitics.com