Do you know someone who is disabled?  Well, most likely you do since more than 15% of Americans are disabled.  Recently a survey company conducted a study for PopCap games and found that 20% of all gamers are disabled!  More amazingly, more than 2/3 reported their disability to be moderate or severe!

So game industry, when are you going to take the disabled community seriously?  Guess what, according to this survey- disabled gamers play more frequently, for more hours per week and for longer periods of time per session. 

A few more specifics: 

54% said they were moderately disabled

46% have physical disabilities, 61% of whom were over 50 years old

52% of those reporting a developmental disability were under 18 years old.

69% were female,

35% needed help taking the survey!

The most common type of disabilities reported were: 

 Physical: Rheumatoid Arthritis/Osteoarthritis (14%); Fibromyalgia (11%); Multiple Sclerosis (7%). 
 Mental: Moderate/Severe Depression (41%); Bipolar Disorder (16%); Anxiety Disorder (15%). 
 Developmental/Learning: ADD/ADHD (46%); Autism (15%); Dyslexia (11%). 

So, why do they play games? Well it sorta depends on what type of disability you have- stress relief (81%), mood lifting (69%), distraction from issues related to disability (66%), improved concentration (59%) and mental workouts (58%).
 

Oh, and one more kinda cool finding:  11% said that a "physician, psychiatrist, physical therapist or other medical professional had prescribed or recommended playing casual games as part of the treatment" for their disability.

You can read the results of the survye from Information Solutions Group (ISG) here: 

www.infosolutionsgroup.com/pdfs/disabled_gamers.pdf