Regardless of the conflict or the protagonists, war has
always resulted in large numbers of soldiers coming home disabled. With the
increasingly mechanised nature of war this only increased in the 20th
century, with almost ten million becoming disabled as a result of World War
One, including almost two million British military personnel. Approximately
300,000 British service personnel meanwhile became disabled as a result of World
War Two.
Statistics for UK servicemen and women who are now disabled
as a result of recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are hard to find.
However, charity Help for Heroes has estimated that thousands who have been
medically discharged between 2001 and 2014 may have been so as a result of
physical injuries sustained on the battlefield.
It should of course also be remembered that countless civilians suffer
disabling injuries in conflicts around the world, often as a result of
airstrikes, landmines and other munitions.
The types of disability and impairment that result from war
range from amputated limbs and paralysis to brain injuries, blindness, hearing
loss and mental health conditions, resulting in lifelong impacts upon the
returning veterans and their families. These impacts can include mobility
impairments, chronic pain and cognitive difficulties.
From the Paralympic
Games to computer games
After World War Two a doctor at Stoke Mandeville Hospital,
Dr Ludwig Guttman, who treated injured veterans with spinal cord injuries, laid
the groundwork for what we now know as the Paralympics by holding the first
Stoke Mandeville games in 1948. His aim was to use sport as a means for
disabled veterans to rebuild their physical strength and self-respect. The
Paralympic Games and disability sport movement that followed from this would
later give people of all disabilities the chance to challenge themselves
physically and mentally.
But while the athletic efforts of disabled sport might be
right for some, for other disabled veterans, computer games are not only a
welcome escape but a means of rehabilitation. But how exactly can games be used
in this way?
Over in the US, charity Operation Supply Drop (OSD) provides
‘care packages’ consisting of computer games and equipment to injured veterans.
In a recent
blog on games site Polygon, OSD’s chief Medical Officer, Major Erik Johnson,
who has himself suffered injuries, explains that games can help them to
reconnect physically and emotionally. He says that, “If you have an amputee who
has recently lost several limbs, they’ll often have a hard time being able to identify
themselves with the ability to do anything else in life. They’re often very
despondent. Video games help them re-establish themselves as an able person who
can enjoy things they used to enjoy.”
Making games
accessible
Of course, adjustments will often be required to software
and/or hardware to ensure that a game is accessible to a disabled gamer,
ex-military or otherwise. This is something that UK charity SpecialEffect, who
currently have a guest
post on accessible gaming in our online community, specialise in.
SpecialEffect work with disabled people, including ex-servicemen and women, to
provide loans of customised equipment which is tailored to suit their needs. In
the case of injured military personnel, this often means using adapted
controllers, such as those which can be used with only one hand, or adapting and
remapping switches and buttons so that they enable the gamer to interact with the
game more naturally.
The promise of
virtual worlds
Recent advances in virtual reality meanwhile are beginning
to offer significant opportunities for the rehabilitation of soldiers with
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). By being immersed in almost-real digital
worlds, what is known as immersive therapy, those with PTSD can be gradually
exposed to their triggers – for example, loud noises – within a safe and
controllable environment. In 2014, initial tests of a virtual reality program called
‘Bravemind’ found that 16
of the 20 ex-military subjects with PTSD showed improvement of their symptoms.
Of course just as the Stoke
Mandeville games led to the Paralympics and sporting opportunities for all
disabled people, the use of computer games in the treatment of disabled
veterans is likely to increase interest in gaming by people of all
disabilities. And while there is still much work to be done to make games more accessible,
many adjustments and adaptions have been put in place by some software and
hardware developers. Some of these are discussed in our current accessible
gaming Q&A, where you can put your own questions to expert Barrie
Ellis.
