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Akili Interactive Labs will soon launch a clinical trial, called STARS-ADHD, that will evaluate the efficacy of its video game intervention for children with ADHD. The company plans to enroll a minimum of 300 children aged 8 to 12 years for its double-blind, randomized, controlled trial.
“Project: EVO has shown early promise to help improve attention and neurocognition in cognitive disorders like ADHD,” STARS-ADHD Principal Investigator Scott Kollins, who is a professor of psychiatry and the director of the ADHD Program at Duke University School of Medicine, said in a statement. “We look forward to enrolling patients and advancing the study and validation of this potential new treatment option for young patients with ADHD.”
Akili’s offering, a video game called Project: Evo, is based on research from UCSF. The game is designed to treat cognitive conditions. To play it, a user navigates an alien avatar, chosen specifically because it is culture-neutral but also relatable, down a course by tilting a mobile device back and forth. While navigating the alien, the user must also respond to targets by tapping the screen. The app keeps track of movements and can therefore monitor the user’s behavior and quickly adapt to the player.
If the STARS-ADHD trial, which has been in piloting phase since November, meets certain goals, the company will submit an application for an FDA clearance.
Via Pharma Guy
Will the FDA approve a video game as an effective treatment for a medical condition? Even if it is approved, will health insurers/patients pay for a game treatment after being conditioned all these years to think only of drugs as treatments? Will physicians prescribe the game to their patients? That would require overturning the entire drug-physician industrial complex! For more on that, read this 2012 Pharma Marketing Blog post: "The Next New Drug: An FDA-Approved Video Game"; http://bit.ly/1NnYuDf