Games For Health

President Satoru Iwata outlines his plan for new health-focused business unit at Mario maker.

Researchers are studying the qualities that make some video games hard to put down, in order to build games that improve memory or other functions or even treat disorders.

Gaming comes to the gym (or home cardio equipment) with Blue Goji, a fitness game from the makers of Guitar Hero.

Playing brain-training video games may help reverse the natural decline in cognitive abilities among older people, according to scientists.

They found that 60-year-olds who played a custom-designed video game for 12 hours over the course of a month improved their multitasking abilities to levels better than those achieved by 20-year-olds playing the game for the first time. The subjects retained those improvements six months later.

"Through challenging your brain, you can drive plasticity and improve its function," said Adam Gazzaley of the University of California, San Francisco. His team's findings suggest the ageing brain is more "plastic" than previously thought, meaning it retains a greater ability to reshape itself in response to the environment and could therefore be improved with properly designed games.

Re-Mission 2, a new release from the nonprofit company HopeLab, is helping kids comply with medical treatment for cancer.

Sure, virtual reality and browser-based games are impressive, but Unreal Engine 4's latest use is a bit more noble: improving the lives of Alzheimer's

The ubiquitous nature of the smartphone makes obvious the opportunity for pharmaceutical companies to develop both clinical interventions and support programs for smartphone devices. However, what if you were to learn that a device that has been available now since November 2010, and is synonymous with gaming, could actually lay claim to a greater impact on health than any other consumer electronic device?

The new Xbox One Kinect is a sophisticated piece of engineering with high-resolution digital camera and high fidelity microphones; the sensor can now even read your heartbeat.  However I feel it is the development of application software where some of the amazing possibilities could be uncovered for pharmaceutical companies. Here are five ways pharma could use the Kinect:

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If you have ever wanted to help cure cancer, you might now be able to do so - with a spot of space-travel from the comfort of your own home.

Scientists at Cancer Research UK have developed an intergalactic smartphone game to help them analyse the overwhelming reams of genetic data generated in recent studies.

They hope thousands of people will play the game, simultaneously trawling through genetic material to pinpoint more precisely which genes cause the disease.