Could This Finnish-Made Video Game Be a Breakthrough in Depression Treatment?

The talk started with some background on how depression treatment is currently provided. That’s a good place to start. See, the game that’s being created targets more than traditional treatments. And I found that very interesting. In the presentation, Laakso says that the “standard of care” for depression focuses on the Mood Symptoms. The treatments are mainly antidepressant drugs and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), other treatments could include psychoanalytic and systemic therapies, which are not mentioned in the presentation.

What Makes the Game Different?

The game, which is called Meliora, addresses both the mood symptoms and the neurocognitive impairments, like attention, memory, learning, and problem-solving. They call it Executive Functions Training (EFT). They tested this with the fourth iteration of the game in a clinical trial of over 1,000 individuals, which was 65% female and had a range of age groups, with the majority being in the 28-37 age range. The patients also had a range of symptoms and co-morbidities. These were all people with hard-to-treat depression who had suffered from it for years.

This depression treatment trial was conducted at a university with the game on PC. Patients had sessions limited to 90 minutes. Over the course of 8 weeks, they spent an average of 46 hours total playing the game. The guidance had been to spend a total of 24 hours on it. Patients who became the most immersed in the game spent more time with it and had better outcomes.

What they found was that participants showed improvement in neurocognitive impairments, and those improvements in turn reduced the mood symptoms. The results were three times better than the best treatment available in Finland, according to Laakso.

Why Did it Work?

Laakso said, “Video games are a neurocognitive medium by default. The player uses their memory, attention, and problem-solving constantly.” Further, he made the claim that only video games can provide EFT because “delivering effective neurocognitive training requires adaptability and measurement in the millisecond scale.”

So, it seems like he’s saying that a video game can capture a person’s attention more effectively and longer than a traditional depression treatment. The technology itself can measure the patient’s activity in the game, and then it can adapt to provide steady improvement.

Meliora Next

Now that they’ve had some success with the fourth iteration of the game in a clinical trial of depression treatment, the team at Soihtu DTx has been working on the next version of the game, which will be for mobile devices, both Android and iOS. Where the previous version was a first-person action game, the next version is less action-driven to be accessible to more people. The game is intended to be prescribed as a medical device and will go through FDA approval in the U.S.

When a patient is prescribed the use of the game, the prescription is for 8 weeks, a total of about 30-40 hours. And the game would be played in sessions of about 15-20 minutes. What I find interesting is that the game is said to be able to adapt to the patient’s skill level within about 30 minutes of starting by tracking about 90 different things (that’s a lot of things). After it has determined the patient’s skill, it is meant to continue to adapt as they improve and provide CBT and EFT training with a little story in between.

The early in-game footage shows an adorable little robot character who is apparently trying to get repaired. Along the way, the character in the game is learning what depression is and how it can be treated. They did this so they didn’t have to break the fourth wall to provide the therapeutic segments. They didn’t want the patient to notice the difference between the game and treatment actively. This way, the user is immersed in the game.

Video Games as Depression Treatment

So, what’s the verdict? I’d say the jury is still out on this one. This is incredibly promising, though. As an avid gamer, video games often provide relief from the real world. It isn’t far-fetched to think that a game could actually provide depression treatment as well. I wish I were in the room because I have so many questions swirling about this. For example, does it have to be a prescription? What prevents something like this from being available to everyone without a doctor’s prescription?

The most significant barrier to mental health is accessibility. I was disappointed to hear that they only intend it to be given on a prescription basis. But that could change. After all, medications are moving to being over-the-counter all the time. Perhaps this could too. And there are still hoops they will need to jump through to accomplish their goal. Government agencies will require proof of efficacy and that it won’t cause harm.

In the end, I’m left with hope. I see a team of people using their skills as game developers to find a novel way to treat something that affects so many people worldwide. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if your next mobile game didn’t just suck up your time and actually made your life better?