A common treatment for many children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is stimulant medication. While these drugs can be particularly helpful in addressing symptoms of inattention and hyperactivity, they can also pose certain drawbacks, acting as a hunger suppressant and driving up blood pressure.
One increasingly popular alternative is game-based digital therapies. The question is: do they actually work? Results are mixed.
One such digital therapeutic called EndeavorRx is the first Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-authorised, game-based treatment for pediatric ADHD. EndeavorRx is largely recommended as an adjunctive treatment alongside medication, therapy and other educational programs.
FDA labelling explicitly says patients may not show benefits in typical behavioural symptoms such as hyperactivity.
“The EndeavorRx device offers a non-drug option for improving symptoms associated with ADHD in children and is an important example of the growing field of digital therapy and digital therapeutics,” Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said in a 2020 news release.
A 2020 study evaluating EndeavorRX found it made a significant improvement on tested unmedicated children’s Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA).
Meanwhile, a 2024 meta-analysis of studies of digital therapies like EndeavorRX found that while medication had stronger effects on symptom improvement, digital therapy did provide more improvement than the control group.
TOVA was also used in a more recent 2026 study made in collaboration with China’s Shenzhen Children’s Hospital, where researchers tested a different computerised cognitive training program on children diagnosed with ADHD between 6 and 12 years old.
The game-like software program, called IBT-AC01, tested nine different tasks “targeting selective attention, working memory, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility.”
The group of children who tested with the program for 25 minutes for five days a week for a total of four weeks did not show significant improvement or differences from the control group, which worked on crossword-search games.
Compared to the general tested population, younger children and those diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder comorbidity observed more improvement relative to controls, but these should be seen as signals rather than established efficacy. – Inc./Tribune News Service
