Reducept Game for chronic pain
A core element of the Reducept method is an award-winning serious game designed specifically for people suffering from chronic pain. You can play the Reducept game both in VR and on mobile. The app is the same whether you play on VR or on your phone, but we recommend VR, for a more immersive experience that can powerfully influence the emotional part of your brain.
- 2021 MT/Sprout Challenger50 van 2021 nominee
- 2020 Game Bakery Awards: Best Serious Game
- 2019 World Summit Award
- 2019 Accenture Healthtech Innovation Challenge Award
- 2019 2 International Serious Play Awards
Why Reducept?
- The Reducept app offers you brain-training techniques and pain education translated into an immersive digital experience.
- A virtual journey through the nervous system helps you understand how pain works.
- The Reducept game is based on evidence-based principles derived from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR), and mindfulness.
- Digital training provides long-lasting pain relief.
The game concept
A Reducept game session lasts approximately 45 minutes and consists of a virtual journey through your nervous system. A background voice will guide you through the game, explaining key educational concepts while you complete exercises to teach your brain to create less pain.
The game allows you to assign a score to how strongly you feel pain before and after you play. This data helps track your progress during the treatment process.
Game levels
There are 5 mini-games, or exercises, that you can play in the Reducept app. Every game uses different evidence-based psychological techniques derived from scientific research. The games will teach you how to reduce your pain when you most need it, but also equip you with strategies for long-lasting pain relief.
- Nerves
- Techniques: Visualisation / Pain Education
- Gameplay length: 10 min
- Game description: In this game, you learn about how threat-related stimuli are created and how your “emotional” brain processes them. This game is a strong visual metaphor for taking control over the threat-related stimuli in the nervous system. The visualization technique in this game helps you teach your “emotional” brain to perceive less danger and thus create less pain.
Read more about visualisation technique https://www.reducept.com/blog/visualizing-and-pain-4-exercises
- Spinal cord
- Techniques: CBT (relaxation) / Pain Education
- Gameplay length: 10 min
- Game description: The spinal cord minigame guides you through the route threat-related stimuli take to your brain. During gameplay, you will be taught how to allow fewer stimuli to reach the end of this pathway. The key to the exercise is to learn how a state of relaxation and positivity prevents pain stimuli from entering your brain, and how to create this state in your mind whenever you are in pain.
- Brain
- Techniques: EMDR / Pain Education
- Gameplay length: 10 min
- Game description: Following the path from the previous minigames, the pain stimuli arrive in the brain, which is the source of the ultimate feeling of pain. The gameplay in this level is based on EMDR techniques and instructs you on how to rewire your brain to respond less strongly to pain stimuli, therefore creating less pain.
- Alarm centre
- Techniques: Visualization / Pain Education / ACT Metaphor
- Gameplay length: 5 min
- Game description: The next minigame takes you through the alarm centre of the brain. This part of the brain is responsible for processing the pain stimuli and determining how many of them move on to the brain. Gameplay focuses on the ways feelings, thoughts and actions affect the sensitivity of the alarm centre. During a play session, you will be able to simulate directing your attention to the alarm centre to filter out threat stimuli.
- Control room
- Techniques: CBT / Pain Education / Mindfulness
- Gameplay length: 12 min
- Game description: The control room visualizes the inside of your alarm centre. Through a series of diverse mindfulness exercises, you are guided through the process of creating new connections in your brain. These connections influence the way you think about and process pain. The exercises are based on CBT techniques and are aimed at reducing the degree to which stimuli are transmitted from the alarm centre.
Story modes
The application offers three different training modes: Story, Practice or Daily Challenge.
It’s best to start with Story mode. This mode teaches key concepts of pain education. You will understand how your brain and nervous system work, how pain appears, and how it impacts your body.
In Practice mode, you can repeat the exercises from Story mode without the educational explanations. Once you have mastered the concepts, you can incorporate playing through Practice mode in your daily routine.
In the Daily Challenge, you will play one game randomly suggested by the app. It’s best to play this mode when you need quick pain relief.
Watch the playthrough demonstration to get a better idea of how Reducept works.
Want to start the Reducept method?
Awesome! Please check our website to find affiliated practitioners who can help you start with the Reducept Method. There are now more than 150 organisations internationally that use Reducept. We are continuously growing our network to make Reducept easily accessible to anyone in need of pain relief.
Is your practitioner not using the Reducept Method yet? You can contact us at support@reducept.com to find out how we can make it happen.
How to play Reducept at home
Would you like to use Reducept at home? Read the user advice article with a list of devices you can use and links to the manuals.
Enjoy the Reducept journey!
