81 Prescription gaming

Prescription gaming

The newest way to administer medication? Via a screen.

An emerging class of techceuticals is pressing play on the future of health management. Doctors are prescribing video games and virtual reality (VR) to treat conditions such as brain fog, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

In November 2021, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the VR therapy EaseVRx as a prescription treatment for chronic back pain. In October 2021, the FDA also approved a VR-based treatment for children with the visual impairment amblyopia, also known as lazy eye.

In April 2021, digital therapeutic company Akili Interactive partnered with Weill Cornell Medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center to evaluate the EndeavorRx video game as a treatment for COVID-19 patients experiencing brain fog. Originally created to treat ADHD in children, EndeavorRx made history in June 2020 as the first ever prescriptionstrength video game approved by the FDA. Akili Interactive states that after

following the recommended dosage of 25 minutes of play per day, five days per week for one month, one in three kids “no longer had a measurable attention deficit on at least one measure of objective attention.” In May 2021, the company secured $160 million in funding to expand its prescription gaming portfolio.

Why it’s interesting Does the future of medicine lie in gamified technology? Michael Phillips Moskowitz, digital nutritionist and founder and CEO of AeBeZe Labs, thinks so. Digital content has “tremendous curative potential,” he tells Wunderman Thompson Intelligence. “Digital therapeutics are going to be the next emerging vertical in pharmaceuticals.” Expect to see more prescription content and digitally administered medication.