FDA approves video game prescription as treatment for the first time
It’s a first: in the United States, the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) approved a video game as a treatment method. Called EndeavorRx, the game can be prescribed for children 8 to 12 years old suffering from attention deficit disorder with or without hyperactivity (ADHD).
While medication may be prescribed to help relieve symptoms of ADHD in children, there may be many side effects, such as headache, heart palpitations, insomnia, or loss of appetite, as noted Ameli.
Play improves cognitive functioning
Before being approved by the FDA, a government agency responsible for evaluating and authorizing or not drugs and food in the United States, the game was subjected to various studies, one of which was carried out on 600 children, was published in The Lancet. The study was, it should be noted, sponsored by Akili Interactive, the studio that developed EndeavorRx.
Here are his results: after a month of treatment with 25 minutes of play per day, five days a week, a third of the children no longer had “a measurable attention deficit on at least one objective attention measure “, explains Akili in a statement.
More concretely, half of the parents noticed a significant change in their child’s impairments after one month of treatment, and these effects lasted until a month after the latter was stopped.
