Watching sports channels helps reduce anxiety, fear among COVID patients: Ghaziabad CMO

COVID-19 patients at some hospitals here are being made to watch sports channels every day and this has helped reduce fear and anxiety among them, leading to a "remarkable" improvement in their health, Ghaziabad Chief Medical Officer N K Gupta said on Friday.

COVID-19 patients at some hospitals here are being made to watch sports channels every day and this has helped reduce fear and anxiety among them, leading to a "remarkable" improvement in their health, Ghaziabad Chief Medical Officer N K Gupta said on Friday. He claimed that a few hospitals here have applied "Indirect Sports Therapy" that has helped patients admitted in isolation wards cope with stress.

Gupta said Ghaziabad's Health Department has adopted this therapy on the suggestion of Dr Kanishka Pandey who is head of sports research centre at the Institute of Management Technology here. "Since we have applied the indirect sports therapy and patients have started watching sports channels, a remarkable change has been noticed in their behaviour and health," the CMO said.

"We are gauging the psychological impact of indirect sports therapy as playing in the fields is not possible during a pandemic," Gupta told PTI..