ATENTIV, maker of a video game-based intervention for ADHD, has partnered with Children’s Specialized Hospital’s Center for Discovery, Innovation and Development (CDID) to explore a novel care model blending both behavioral and primary care.
Of particular note, ATENTIV and CDID, part of the RWJBarnabas Health system in New Jersey, will be investigating how to deploy the therapy, called ATENTIVmynd, to young patients via a primary care clinician.
"ATENTIV and Children’s Specialized Hospital system … entered into a 10-year deployment agreement of the ATENTIVmynd Solution and care model for the treatment of executive dysfunctions throughout its clinical networks and statewide,” Eric Gordon, CEO of ATENTIV, told MobiHealthNews in an email statement. “The system-wide deployment of the ATENTIVmynd Solution is planned to provide broad home access, integrated primary care management and remediation to 10s of thousands of children with executive dysfunctions due to developmental delays of executive skills in childhood."
ATENTIVmynd is a brain computer interface (BCI) therapy combining a headband with mounted dry EEG sensors and a tablet-based game. Designed to help children with executive skills dysfunction, the intervention’s closed-loop system responds to the player’s performance in the game to target development of specific brain functions such as attention, memory, reasoning and decision making.
WHY IT MATTERS
For ATENTIV, the collaboration is an opportunity to explore new deployment strategies for its therapy.
In the broader sense, this proposed care model represents a unique, digitally enabled approach toward integrating behavioral and developmental support into standard primary care practices.
“It is expected that consumers, payers, employers and providers will experience significant reductions in the costs of care while providing children and families ready access to quality care otherwise not previously available,” Gordon said. “This commitment marks the first significant directional change by a premier health care system in the integrated care and resolution for the underlying causes of developmental delays in normal executive function rather than short-term symptomatic relief.”
THE LARGER TREND
ATENTIVmynd was highlighted last year in a Nature Translational Psychiatry study, which found that boys who received the intervention had significantly more efficient local processing in relevant parts of the brain as well as generally reduced ADHD symptoms. And the company isn’t alone in using video games as cognitive condition therapies — Boston-based Akili Interactive Labs is awaiting FDA clearance for its own digital ADHD therapy.
ON THE RECORD
“We are thrilled to collaborate with ATENTIV, LLC on this innovative program,” Warren E. Moore, SVP of pediatric services for RWJBarnabas Health as well as president and CEO of Children’s Specialized Hospital, said in a statement. “Strategic partnerships like this that focus on improving patient outcomes ensure we are that much closer to fulfilling our vision of a world where all children can reach their full potential.”
