A Video Game for ADHD?
After hearing about a new FDA approved prescription video game for ADHD, I had to read the research myself to believe it. At first thought, it seemed counterproductive to me. How can something that typically has been known to be a distractor help ADHD? Don’t get me wrong, technology has its pros, such as increased productivity for the workplace, convenience of shopping from home, even working from home thanks to COVID but it still makes me question the effectiveness of a video game to improve your attention.
In today’s day and age, technology is such a large part of our lives. Screen time on our phones increase, and our threshold for the amount of “multitasking” for the first hour of our work day has drastically increased over the past 20 years. Below is part of the research study that I found. I hope you find this useful!
ADHD is a widely known diagnosis that children struggle with, it accounts for about 5% of US children, and is the most commonly diagnosed pediatric mental health disorder. As we learn more about mental health in the US, we want to find the safest treatment - especially for children who are still developing and growing. Medication has it’s side-effects, and has short-term efficacy. I was especially surprised to hear that the trials used for pharmacological efficacy for ADHD typically used parent rated or clinician rated symptom measures! This means the research to back these drugs used for ADHD are mostly based on the parent or clinicians subjective opinion. Having alternate methods outside of pharmacological intervention is important, especially if it has limited improvements that become outweighed by side effects.
Participants: 8-12 years old with ADHD, No Medication even if regularly taken, 348 kids
About the Study Design: Randomized, Double-Blind, Parallel-group, Controlled Trial
The video game trial would be an alternative method that would be engaging, but also reduces adverse effects (negative side effects). The novel digital therapeutic. AKL-T01 (Akili Interactive Labs, Boston, MA, USA), was made to engage children with ADHD but also targets attentional control to improve completion of tasks and shift attention more efficiently between tasks. What makes this trial unique to research for the ADHD population, is that it uses objective cognitive assessments to measure outcomes. So, findings are not based on a parent or clinician opinion of the results, but tests administered to the child. The trial showed significant improvement in attention-related measures with children that used the video game AKL-T01, compared to the group that did not. It also reduces negative side effects for the child. The only reported adverse effects included 7% of children using AKL-T01 were frustration and headache, versus 40-60% of children in trials of commonly used stimulant medications (which has a lengthy list depending on the medication). Specifically, trials done for stimulant medications don't have research on the functional improvement on a validated measure that this study has. There definitely needs more research done to see the long term effects of this video game, but it’s a novel treatment technique that may be safer and more accessible to families in the future.
References
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Kollins SH, DeLoss DJ, et al. A novel digital intervention for actively reducing severity of paediatric ADHD (STARS-ADHD): a randomized controlled trial. Lancet Digital Health 2020: Volume 2, Issue 4, E168-e178.
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