Are Video Games The Future Of Therapy?
Every year, 26% of individuals in the United States suffer from a mental illness such as depression, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This may have an impact on their capacity to work, form relationships, and live a fulfilling life.
Therapy and medicine are well-known therapy treatments for mental health illnesses, but some individuals believe that video games may also help them feel better, and some studies back this up.
By creating games that are both helpful and interesting, a new firm plans to put video games to the front of mental health treatment. They’re also working towards making it simpler for game producers to test the medicinal benefits of current games. If a game creator can demonstrate certain health advantages, the FDA may grant clearance to advertise the game as treatment. The FDA, for example, granted Akili Interactive approval to commercialize “EndeavorRx” for the treatment of ADHD symptoms in 2020.
Game makers normally cannot claim that their games may assist cure any particular ailments without FDA permission, which means that individuals who need it may never learn about a game’s possible medicinal advantages.
The FDA’s approval also lends legitimacy to a game, making physicians more likely to prescribe it and patients more likely to play it. It allows patients to cooperate with health insurance providers to have the cost of a game reimbursed as well.
However, obtaining FDA approval may be costly, time-consuming, and hard – the EndeavorRX team had to conduct five clinical trials involving over 600 youngsters — deterring most researchers from ever attempting it.
DeepWell Digital Therapeutics is a recently formed gaming firm with the goal of creating new games to treat mental health illnesses, identifying current games with health advantages, and obtaining FDA clearance as “medical devices.” The company’s co-founders are ideal candidates for this position. Mike Wilson is the co-founder of Devolver Digital, an indie game publisher, and Ryan Douglas is a medical device developer who has received FDA clearance for over 25 gadgets in the last 15 years.
Tiesha loves to share her passion for everything that’s beautiful in this world. Apart from writing on her beauty blog and running her own beauty channel on Youtube, she also enjoys traveling and photography. Tiesha covers various stories on the website.
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