FDA ap­proves first ther­a­peu­tic video game

Here’s a new one: The FDA has just ap­proved a pre­scrip­tion video game.

The brain­child of a cou­ple of cog­ni­tive sci­en­tists who built the pro­to­type tech­nol­o­gy over a decade ago, the video game is de­signed to help im­prove at­ten­tion func­tion in kids with AD­HD. It was de­vel­oped by Ak­ili In­ter­ac­tive, one of two ma­jor health tech video game com­pa­nies, and is called En­deav­or­Rx.

Doc­tors can pre­scribe it for kids ages 8 to 12 with AD­HD and a his­to­ry of at­ten­tion is­sues. A price has yet to be an­nounced, but an Ak­ili spokesper­son said in an email that they are work­ing to get cov­er­age from in­sur­ers and to “ex­pect pric­ing to be in the range of oth­er treat­ments like drugs and be­hav­ioral ther­a­py cur­rent­ly used in chil­dren with AD­HD.”

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