Video Gamers Will Cure What Ails You

It's no secret that video gamers get the short end of the stick, respect-wise. They're not usually the ones picked first in gym class, if you know what I mean. But it turns out that they have some seriously useful skills. Skills that might help with some of the world's problems. Or at least some health problems, like obesity, nicotine addiction and autism.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Health Games Research national program has just announced $1.85 million in grants to nine research teams around the country, which will investigate the ways that digital video games might be able to help players' with their health problems, according to a Foundation press release. The teams will run studies on games such as Dance Dance Revolution and Wii Active to see if using them might help Parkinson's patients reduce their chances of falling or increase overweight young people's ability to shed pounds. Other games will be tested for their applications to a variety of other problems.

The nine research teams, chosen from 185 proposals, have each been given $100,000 to $300,000 to run studies with diverse groups of subjects ranging from grade-schoolers to octogenarians. The game interfaces to be tested run the gamut from video consoles to mobile phones to robots.

"Health Games Research is a major investment to build a research base for this dynamic young field," said Paul Tarini, team director for RWJF's Pioneer Portfolio, which funds the program. "Further, the insights and ideas that flow from this work will help us continue to expand our imagination of what is possible in this arena."

Does this mean the gamers will get picked first for sports? Maybe so, if the Wii Active has anything to do with it.

Photo courtesy of RebeccaPollard via flickr