Object Odyssey (OO)

Inspiration

ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects an individual's ability to pay attention, control impulses, and regulate behavior. One of the primary symptoms of ADHD is difficulties with concentration and focus, which can make it challenging to complete tasks or follow through on goals. ADHD affects 6 million children in the US population. Children with ADHD struggle with motivation, working memory, and paying attention.

What it does

Object Odyssey is a therapeutic platform that provides stimulating puzzles to alleviate negative symptoms related to ADHD. This game provides two types of treatment: 1) behavior therapy to improve their self-control by providing rewards for completing the game task. 2) Cognitive training to improve their attention and focus, and problem-solving abilities to enhance their personal capacity.

How we built it

Object Odyssey was implemented on a VR platform using Unity Game Engine and C#. VR offers an immersive environment free of distractions

Challenges we ran into

The main challenge was choosing the most impactful puzzles that will support negative symptoms related to ADHD.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Creating an End2End VR game that provides different levels that offers an immersive environment free of distractions and also is a great help to people with mental health disorders, including schizophrenia. We provided this VR game as part of cognitive remediation therapy (CRT)

What we learned

We found various studies to evaluate how video games can be used as a therapeutic supplement.

References are:

1) Canady, V.A., 2020. FDA approves first video game Rx treatment for children with ADHD. Mental Health Weekly 30, 1–7.. https://doi.org/10.1002/mhw.32423

The Food and Drug Administration approved a prescription treatment delivered through a video game for children with attention deficit hyper-activity disorder (ADHD). The prescription-only game-based device is called EndeavorRx

2) Pier J.M. Prins, Sebastiaan Dovis, Albert Ponsioen, Esther ten Brink, and Saskia van der Oord.Does Computerized Working Memory Training with Game Elements Enhance Motivation and Training Efficacy in Children with ADHD?.Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.Mar 2011.115-122. http://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2009.0206

Study with 50 children showed that children trained with Working Memory Training with game elements resulted in improvements in motivation, training performance, working memory compared to children trained with Working Memory Training without game elements

3) Choi, J.-A., 2012. Literature Review of Play Therapy Intervention for Children with ADHD. Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association 50, 125–138.. https://doi.org/10.6115/khea.2012.50.5.125

The studies found that game playtherapy and cognitive-behavior play therapy are effective for improving ADHD children’s attention, impulsiveness,and self-control. The major game play therapy activities used were dart games, “Simon says” games, fishing games,dominoes, Jenga, Beat the Clock, the board game “Stop,” and “Ice, break., ice, break.”

What's next for Object Odyssey (OO)

Individual components used in our project have been supported by scientific evidence. However, a large double-blind study should be conducted to test the effectiveness of this project.