Video Game Helps Patients Stick to Treatment

New research from the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands shows that playing a specially designed video game can help adolescents and young adults with cancer more closely adhere to their prescribed treatment.

The researchers stated that adherence is particularly difficult among this age group. To investigate whether playing a video game night help, more than 300 patients age 13 to 29 being treated in 34 medical centers in the United States, Canada and Australia were assigned to play the specially designed game. The game, called Re-Mission, involves an adventure game with a nanobot named Roxxi. The game includes cancer topics and neither Roxxi or any of the virtual patients in the game dies. As a result, the patients showed increases in adherence to medication use and increased cancer-related knowledge.

The article appears in the August issue of Pediatrics. The game is available for patients and medical professionals at www.re-mission.net.