The Video Game Prescribed By Doctors To Treat ADHD 29
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: In 2020 [EndeavorRx] became the first such game to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in the treatment of ADHD in children. Currently only available on prescription from doctors in the US, EndeavorRx at first glance looks very similar to countless other games. You control a little alien that races on a spaceship through different worlds having to collect things. But the app-based game was developed in conjunction with neuroscientists, and is designed to stimulate and improve areas of the brain that play a key role in attention function. The idea is that it trains a child with ADHD to both better multitask and ignore distractions, with a computer algorithm measuring his or her performance and customizing the difficulty of the game in real time. When doctors prescribe it, the child's parents get sent an activation link that is needed before the game will play.
Eddie Martucci, chief executive of Akili, the Boston-based tech firm behind EndeavorRx, says the game has been designed to boost cognitive progressing. "It is something that's very difficult to get through molecular means, like taking a pill. But it turns out that sensory stimuli can actually directly stimulate parts of the brain controlling cognitive function." His company now plans to launch the game in Europe in the next few years. Akili is one of only a handful of companies with clearance to offer a digital therapeutic as a prescription for medical conditions. Late last year, the FDA approved a virtual reality-based treatment for children with the visual disorder amblyopia, or lazy eye.
Eddie Martucci, chief executive of Akili, the Boston-based tech firm behind EndeavorRx, says the game has been designed to boost cognitive progressing. "It is something that's very difficult to get through molecular means, like taking a pill. But it turns out that sensory stimuli can actually directly stimulate parts of the brain controlling cognitive function." His company now plans to launch the game in Europe in the next few years. Akili is one of only a handful of companies with clearance to offer a digital therapeutic as a prescription for medical conditions. Late last year, the FDA approved a virtual reality-based treatment for children with the visual disorder amblyopia, or lazy eye.
Prescription only? (Score:2)
Are they worried people might self-medicate? Overdose?
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I bet the microtransactions are killer.
Re: Prescription only? (Score:3)
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I don't think big pharma has anything on mobile game developers. Probably still cheaper than most "free to play" games.
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If it actually works, and assuming they did a lot of research and testing to develop it, then it's not a cash grab. Creating an effective therapy is a lot harder than writing a simple web game. They need to recover that investment.
If it doesn't work, then it's a scam. I have no information about whether it does or not.
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If I had to guess, I'd say it is probably a matter of profit: selling to a smaller population, but at a much higher price.
I think it's more marketing.
If you sell it without prescription then it gets lumped in with a thousand other games that claim to improve your cognition or reduce your brain age with without much evidence (though I should throw some props to the researcher behind the Brain Age ones [wikipedia.org]).
But there's a much higher level of medical evidence needed to justify a prescription, so a parent could fairly rationally go with one of these games as opposed to something else.
There's also the fact that prescriptions can get co
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The other factor is that it's treated as a medication. To make it "over the counter" requires a significant amount of expensive testing and safety data.
The system wasn't designed to handle video games as medicine, and it's not well suited to it.
$33/mo min sub 3month + hardware? and network? (Score:5)
$33/mo min sub 3month + hardware? and network? costs
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> $33/mo min sub 3month + hardware? and network? costs
And for that you get:
3 out of 4 children said they felt some improvement. The study was sponsored by the game maker with one of the study's authors on staff. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov]
and
3 out of 5 parents said they saw some improvement in their child. The study included medication and was sponsored by the game maker. https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
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If there are persistent benefits, that's a bargain. They could charge ten times as much and it would still be worth it. But we don't know if it has persistent benefits. I assume not since the brain is always changing, but I haven't read anything other than the summary.
I'm sure I would have been diagnosed ... (Score:1)
I thought this was already done (Score:2)
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Yeah, and they don't cure ADHD... though they may provide some welcome distraction
Ender's Game (Score:2)
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That may be because most people only watched the film which leaves the viewer oblivious to many facts about the story.
Two thoughts on this (Score:2)
First, although the summary says it's for kids, I'd love to try it out. I can't take my ADD meds now, and even when I can I build up a tolerance quickly and I need a break before they work again. It would be good to have an alternative.
Second, I'm wondering if something like this might help slow the progression of dementia. I know they're entirely different conditions, but if the process engages neuro-plasticity maybe it would help, and it probably couldn't hurt.
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i wouldnt be too worried about the diagnosis, its the same bunch that thought gayness was a disorder of mind. i cannot comprehend how you can diagnose a child being inattentive or hyperactive when thats exactly what theyre learning to counter at that age. if you go by the DSM, there is surely no mentally healthy person alive.
Someone will crack it and make the APK avaliable. (Score:1)
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apple get's 30% of the DR visit bill! (Score:2)
apple get's 30% of the DR visit bill!
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See, it's called an "app" because they are smaller than "applications." Instead of 3.5 GB for an office suite, it's 150MB for a calculator.
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If you just said the therapy is a "game" to most doctors/educators/therapists/etc that treat children, they'd probably first think board/card/word/etc game played with an adult.
Developers messed up the implementation (Score:1)