Akili Interactive’s EndeavorRX, formerly Project EVO, is set to be the first of its kind video game that can be marketed as a prescribed medicine in the United States, Verge reported.

The decision has been taken by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is authorizing doctors to prescribe the iPhone and iPad games for kids between 8-12 years with Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This a chronic condition affects millions of children and includes a combination of persistent problems, such as difficulty sustaining attention, hyperactivity and impulsive behaviour.

The doctors employed by the game developer company conducted a seven-year-long clinical trial on 600 kids to monitor whether gaming can help kids control their ADHD.

According to the company’s favourite of the five studies, the answer is yes: one-third of kids treated “no longer had a measurable attention deficit on at least one measure of objective attention” after playing the obstacle-dodging, target-collecting game for 25 minutes a day, five days a week for four weeks.

“Improvements in ADHD impairments following a month of treatment with EndeavorRx were maintained for up to a month,” the company cited, with the most common side effects being frustration and headache — seemingly mild compared to traditional drugs, as you’d hope from so-called virtual medicine.

However, the report by the Verge said that the doctors were assigned by the gaming company and hence, the study’s conclusions “are not sufficient to suggest that AKL-T01 should be used as an alternative to established and recommended treatments for ADHD.”

However, it could be a potential treatment for ADHD syndrome.

With EndeavorRX, the next step is to launch the game, an Akili rep told The Verge. Though it did technically open up enrollment for a limited number of families under the FDA’s relaxed COVID-19 enforcement back in April.

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