Games as Medicine | Techcetera

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You may not have heard of EndeavorRX by Akili ENtretaintment, formerly called Project EVO. But believe me it is going to be a game that will remain for history.

This is the first game (in the United States) that can be medicated by doctors as part of a clinical or medical treatment for their patients.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced yesterday that EndeavorRX – an iOS game – can be medicated by doctors to treat the deficit of Attention (ADHD) in children between 8 and 12 years old.

The authorization is given after having gone through seven years of medical tests with around 600 children. One of the 5 studies says that a third of children treated with EndeavorRX “no longer had a measurable attention deficit on at least one objective attention measure”After playing the game for 25 minutes a day, 5 days a week, for four weeks.

The company alsoisn says that improvements to ADHD after treatment last for up to a month, and that the worst side effects, such as frustration and headache, are very slight compared to those generated by other drugs used to treat ADHD.

It is important to emphasize the study situations. The doctors who carried it out worked for Akili, the creator of the game, and they themselves say that the results “they are not sufficient to suggest that AKL-T01 should be used as an alternative to established and recommended treatments for ADHD.”

however, the FDA feels it can be used to treat the disease and has already allowed doctors to use it through an early deployment thanks to the FDA’s relaxed measures by COVID-19 since April.

Akili now has the possibility of being administered as an accepted treatment, and this opens up many possibilities.

What is interesting about the announcement is that Akili becomes the first game to be formally accepted as a treatment, a practice that we see growing with technologies like Virtual Reality that increasingly demonstrate its benefits in treating diseases and phobias.

If you want to know more, Akili has a waiting list where you can enroll.

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