Researchers have showed upsetting bits of film to 60 subjects and then asked them to note down how often they experienced flashbacks to the graphics and unsettling images.

They were then separated into three groups, one for control, one which played Tetris and one which played a computer game but based around words and not images.

All the subjects had no history of mental health issues and the group which played Tetris reported than in 10 minutes they had just four flashbacks on average, with the word game group getting six of them and the control group experiencing about 12.

The effectiveness of Tetris also seems to be the biggest in the long term.

The researchers concluded that, “A visuospatial task such as Tetris may offer a ‘cognitive vaccine’ against the development of PTSD flashbacks after exposure to traumatic events.”

The study has been published in the journal PloS ONE and says that playing Tetris occupies the brain and distracts it, making it more difficult for troubling memories to form by disrupting the mechanism which is used to transfer images from the short to the long term memories.

Read the full article at SoftPedia.

Currently there are more than 125,000 contractors working for the U.S. government in Iraq.  While although most of them are working alongside soldiers, they don’t receive the same benefits as the military does when returning to the states.  They aren’t eligible for treatment in the VA (Veterans Affair) or other military healthcare systems.

The resulting consequence is that contractors who have mental illnesses such as PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) are not properly diagnosed and treated. Furthermore, the United States government has not investigated the war’s toll on these contractors.

More PTSD treatment centers have started opening their doors to United States contractors who have been working in the Iraq war.   Hopefully the Pentagon and VA will look further into the matter and start providing contractor with the help they deserve.