Scientists at Cambridge University have developed a brain training app that can help people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) manage their symptoms and debilitating conditions, which can usually include excessive handwashing and contamination fears.
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| Brain training app may help reduce symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder |
How can Brain Training App Help Reduce Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Symptoms?
What is Brain Training App?
games and software for brain exercise purposes.
Brain training refers to
cognitive training, which uses intense mental practice to target and work
on the brain’s basic cognitive skills.
Strong cognitive skills are important
because they are the skills used to learn, read, argue remember, and focus on
the brain. They also have skills that determine IQ.
In brain training
applications, there is a claim to improve the ability to solve problems by
tapping into intelligent and cognitive skills such as memory, attention,
processing speed, long and short memory, hearing processing, and the plasticity
of your brain – its ability to change.
Even professors to help those
significant brain problems are beneficial such as painful brain injury, Chemo
some brain, dementia, dyslexia, ADHD, and much more.
You can boost and promote
your memory with some dedicated brain training apps or maintain a healthy
state, which are turning simple activities into a radical thought exercise.
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A brain-training app is developed at the University of Cambridge that can help
those who are suffering from many mental problems, such as dementia,
obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) manage their symptoms, which usually
include contamination fears and excessive hand washing.
skills by practicing mental challenge exercises that are designed for shape and
appearance like a video game.
The ultimate goal of using a brain training app is to improve the performance of important everyday tasks.
It has been claimed that some brain exercise apps can help boost IQ levels, positive effects on people with mental health issues.
Recently, many websites and several programs
have come on the internet for these purposes, but some have faced criticism or
legal action to eliminate their profits.
Some studies have proposed that any
mental stimulation of such programs may be due to the placebo effect.
About Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
that is characterized by unwanted and uncontrolled thoughts and rituals,
repetitive behaviors that you feel compelled to perform.
Read here: Common Symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
How Brain Training Apps Work in OCD
Symptoms?
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| Brain training app helps reduce symptoms of OCD |
Brain Training App could Help Reduce OCD Symptoms: Study Claims
Scientific Report Journal. In the study, Professor Barbara Sahakian and Baland
Jalal from the Department of Psychiatry show that significant improvements can
be made in only one week of training.
They determine one of the most common
types of OCD, which are affected by up to 46 percent of OCD patients, which are
characterized by severe contamination fears and excessive washing behavior.
Excessive washing can be harmful because sometimes OCD patients use spirits,
surface cleaners, or even bleach to clean their hands.
Behavior can have a
serious impact on the lives of people, their relationships, their
mental health, and their ability to get jobs. This repetitive and
compulsive behavior is also associated with ‘cognitive stiffness’ – in other
words, the inability to adapt to new conditions or new rules.
To get out of
compulsive habits such as hand washing, cognitive flexibility is required so
that the OCD patient can switch to new activities instead.
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of medicines such as Prozac and a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy named
‘Exposure and Response prevention’.
Later therapies included OCD patients
frequently asking to touch contaminated surfaces like toilets, but to avoid
washing their hands again.
These treatments are not particularly effective,
though – 40 percent of patients fail to show a good response for either
treatment. This can happen to some extent because people with OCD have to suffer
before getting diagnosed and treated often.
Another difficulty is that patients
may fail to participate in exposure and response prevention therapy because
they feel very stressful to do it.
Therefore, researchers
of Cambridge developed a new technique to help people
with excessive washing and contamination fears. Interventions,
which can be distributed through a smartphone app, including watching videos to
touch your hands or touch fake counterfeit surfaces, are beneficial
the basis of high scores on the ‘Padua Inventory Contamination Fear Subscale”
participating in the study scared.
Researchers used healthy volunteers instead
of OCD patients in their studies to ensure that the interventions did not lead
to potentially bad symptoms.
Participants were divided into three groups: The first group watched videos of their hands washing on their smartphones; The second group saw similar videos but to touch fake counterfeit surfaces; And
third, the control group looked at neutral hand movements on their smartphones.
Only a week after watching your brief 30-second video four times a day,
participants of the first two groups – that is, who saw handheld videos and
exposure and reaction prevention videos – improved OCD symptoms and showed more
cognitive flexibility than the conditions and neutral control group.
On
average, in the first two groups, participants saw an increase of about
21percent in their Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (YBOCS) score. YBOCS score is the most widely used clinical evaluation to assess the severity of
OCD.
The important thing is that the completion rate for the study was
excellent – all participants completed a week’s intervention, in which
participants viewing their video an average of 25 out of 28 times.
people to get help at any time within the environment where they live or work,
instead of waiting for the appointments.
The use of smartphone video is
personalized to the individual. The results are very exciting and encouraging,
among those diagnosed with OC.
This Smartphone app is not currently available
for public use. This Smartphone app is not currently available for public use.
Researchers need further research before concluding that it is effective in
helping OCD patients.
smartphone washing app allowed them to be easily involved in their daily
activities. For example, a participant said, ‘If I am coming to the bus and
touching something contaminated I cannot wash my hands in the next two hours,
the app will be an adequate option in the future.”
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