Finally something good coming from a video game. A kid from Britain was diagnosed with a “lazy eye syndrome”, which had to potential to cause blindness if left untreated. To remedy this, his doctor prescribed that the boy play Mario Kart on his Nintendo DS
for two hours every day, while wearing a patch across his strong eye, so that his “lazy eye” could become stronger.
A British youth overcame what is called “lazy eye syndrome” thanks to a doctor’s prescription of Mario Kart DS, restoring his right eye from “near blindness” to a 250 percent improvement.
At age 5, Ben Michaels was diagnosed with ambylopia in his right eye, which results in a steady decline in vision in that eyeball. Untreated he would have gone completely blind in it. His doctor, however, told Ben to play Mario Kart DS with an eye patch, which trained the “lazy” one to work harder and thus to improve.
Best part, the therapy called for playing video games two hours a day. Sorry mom, doctor’s orders! It doesn’t appear that the success was dependent Mario Kart DS or any specific game or console. Perhaps its mentioned here because it was Ben’s favorite.
“A games console is something children can relate to. It allows us to deliver treatment quicker,” said Ben’s doctor. “What we don’t know is whether improvement is solely because of improved compliance, i.e. the child sticks with the patch more, or whether there is a physiological improvement from perceptual visual learning.”
Either way, it appears to have worked.