April 04, 2006
A Video Game as Treatment
HopeLab announced the release of Re-Mission(TM), the first video game scientifically shown to improve health-related outcomes for young people with cancer, an underserved and overlooked population who are at greater risk for adverse cancer outcomes. The game is available free of charge to young people with cancer concurrent with the release of positive results from the Re-Mission Outcomes Study. The study is the first-ever randomized, controlled trial focused exclusively on adolescents and young adults with cancer. Data from the study showed statistically significant improvements in cancer-related self-efficacy, social quality of life, cancer-specific knowledge, and adherence to prescribed medication regimens in patients who played Re-Mission.
Players fly a nanobot called Roxxi through a cancer patient's body on missions that range from free-roaming exploration to run-and-gun combat. Along the way, power-ups engine energize weapons like chemotherapy, radiation and diet as well as a response to complications like bacterial infection, nausea, fever and constipation.
Re-mission wraps a true-to-life cancer simulation in a gaming interface that helps kids visualize the disease and vanquish it. The goal is to increase players' control over their circumstances.
Re-mission Video (the making of Re-mission)
Posted by rsk at April 4, 2006 08:22 AM