Motion Sickness can be Controlled with Visuospatial Training Exercises

The new study finds that visuospatial training exercises can help people who are often sick to travel. It suggests that these exercises can be a self-help method to avoid motion sickness, according to the research team from the University of Warwick. This team found the risk of motion sickness reduced by more than 50% during the driving simulator as well as actual driving on the road trial. These findings are now published in the journal  Applied Ergonomics (2020). 

It is normal to feel sick while traveling while a majority of the population is highly vulnerable to get sick during traveling. Motion sickness which is also called travel sickness is a condition in which people feel dizzy and nauseated during car and boat travel mostly.

Not only the actual travel people are also likely to experience motion sickness while playing games wearing the virtual reality headgears or when they are experiencing stimulator.

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With so many vehicles on the road and increased traveling during the last few decades, it is apparent that people are bothered with travel sickness. But sometimes it doesn’t even involve real term traveling to experience these symptoms. People watching movies in cinemas or reading in a car can also experience some visual impairment and nausea which are highly undesirable. Only if this motion sickness could be controlled it may help to increase manpower and productivity by more than 508bi USD.

Taking an account of all these people affected by motion sickness, there is absolutely no significant research on how to control it. But the new study by the research team from the University of Warwick is finally able to present a better picture.

During this experiment, they checked the efficacy of the visuospatial training exercises and how it can potentially trick the brain to overcome the motion sickness. They found these exercises to be pretty much helpful.

All the participants in this study were asked to use the WMG 3xD simulator in stimulator trials or they were on a road on the passenger seat, in driving trials.

The baseline data on motion sickness was recorded before the first ride. After the trial, they were asked to fill a questionnaire explaining their symptoms. This questionnaire used standards like ‘fast motion sickness scale’ to evaluate the intensity of their symptoms. Many of them reported having nausea, abdominal discomfort, and others.

After the first trial ended, all the participants were asked to complete a set of certain visuospatial training exercises for the brain, using a paper and pen for 15 mins, daily. The training exercises that these participants followed included watching the different patterns of boxes to identify the real image and other similar tasks on identifying spatial patterns. This practice was followed up to two weeks after which the second trial was conducted.

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In the second trial, all of the participants were analyzed for motion sickness again and they showed a 50% improvement in their symptoms which was a remarkable success. The travel sickness was 51% reduced in people who were a part of the stimulator trial and it was reduced by 58% in people who were an on-road trial.

The research team hopes that their finding can help people to feel comfortable during traveling. The vehicle making companies may also use these results to design user-friendly vehicles with minimum chances of motion sickness.