A trial published in The Lancet Digital Health suggests that a digital intervention for paediatric attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) might help to improve inattention.
What’s already available?
Access to behavioural interventions is limited because of a lack of properly trained paediatric mental health specialists and availability of services. Medication may not be suitable for some patients due to caregiver preferences or concerns about abuse, misuse, and diversion.
The new research
Researchers investigated whether a video game-like intervention designed to target attention and cognitive control, could improve a validated score related to attention (Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA) Attention Performance Index (API)). Between July 2016 and November 2017, 348 children were randomly assigned to receive the digital therapy or a control, which was designed to match the intervention as a challenging and engaging digital word game.
“Our trial is one of only a few randomised controlled investigations into digital interventions for children with ADHD. The improvement observed in attentional functioning in patients who received the active intervention was meaningful, although more work needs to be done to fully understand whether the findings are clinically meaningful,” says Professor Scott Kollins of the Duke University Medical Centre.
Despite needing to be further researched to confirm the clinical meaningfulness of the observed changes, the digital nature of the intervention could help improve access for some patients.
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