Video games can do many things for a person. Beyond serving as an outlet for pent up stress or just pure escapism. Video games have been documented to potentially improve hand-eye coordination, improve cognition, treat depression, improves problem-solving skills, improves memory, improves brain speed, and much much more. Joining the long list of benefits video games offer people is now treating ADHD.
On June 15th, the FDA officially approved a digital treatment developed by Akili Interactive to treat attention deficit in people diagnosed with ADHD. Setting aside the controversy surrounding the diagnosis itself, EndeavorRx works by triggering specific neural systems to help train the brain to treat and improve the parts of the brain associated with the afflicted functions. It does so by “directly targeting and activate neural systems through the presentation of sensory stimuli and motor challenges.”
EndeavorRx is built on the Akili Selective Stimulus Management engine (SSMETM) core technology, a proprietary technology designed for the targeted activation of specific neural systems in the brain to treat diseases with associated cognitive dysfunction. SSME presents specific sensory stimuli and simultaneous motor challenges designed to target and activate the neural systems that play a key role in attention function while using adaptive algorithms to personalize the treatment experience for each individual patient. This enables second by second monitoring of patient progress completing the treatment sessions, and continuously challenges each patient to an optimized level, encouraging patients to improve their performance. Driven by the core belief at Akili that effective medicine can also be fun and engaging, EndeavorRx is delivered through an action video game experience. The captivating experience of EndeavorRx is designed to drive engagement and compliance.
Proving the treatment worked, the EdeavorRx was subjected to five clinical studies published in The Lancet Digital Health Journal, involving over 600 children diagnosed with ADHD. Reportedly after a month, one-third of the children no longer had a measurable attention deficit, with about 50% of parents reporting a noticeable improvement in their children’s day to day lives. After two months this figure rose to 68% improvement.
Improvements were documented to persist up to a month following treatment. It is unknown if this figure is a result of the technology or the scope of the studies. For instance, if the study treated for a month and then documented for a month, no further data would be available post the two month period. Alternatively, if the studies were more extensive, the improvements may be temporary, but compound over periods of time into neural improvements.
It is also important to note the studies did not control for outside factors such as diet, exercise, etc. It is documented several food dyes directly contribute to ADHD and, for this reason, are illegal in many countries. It is also documented exercise is essential to the treatment of ADHD, so if the children were eating a diet high in food dyes and not exercising, this would not the fault of the technology but the individual.
All that, though, is for further studies to conclude and control for. As for today, the FDA has certified their product; a video game based on algorithms does treat attention deficit in the human brain. Unfortunately, the World Health Organization continues to perpetuate the unscientific stigma that video games are addictive under the revised definition of addiction.
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