Gaming is an unconventional new medical resource

During a panel at this week’s GamesBeat Summit, several experts in the field talked about the rise of digital entertainment as a new form of treatment. More specifically, they spoke about how video games can be used for a variety of healthcare applications, including neurological illnesses and even patient care. The panelists were Eddie Martucci, the CEO and co-founder of Akili Interactive, Mirelle Phillips, the founder of Studio Elsewhere and Laura Tabacof, assistant professor of rehabilitation at Mount Sinai. Stanley Pierre-Louis, CEO of the Entertainment Software Association, moderated the panel.

Martucci’s studio, Akili, produces EndeavorRx, produces an FDA-approved video game treatment for children with ADHD. As Martucci said, getting a game approved as a medical treatment was not easy: “The path was to take it all the way through clinical trials, so we’ve done large-scale clinical trials just like you’d expect from a pharmaceutical product. We took it to the FDA’s two-year review process for the first time and EndeavorRx is still the only FDA-approved video game out there. It was a long journey, took a long time and I think there’s lot we can learn now going forward.”