A PILOT STUDY FOR THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DIGITAL THERAPEUTICS AS AN ADDITIVE TREATMENT FOR IMPROVING THE CLINICAL SYMPTOMS OF ADHD

초록

Objectives The objective of this pilot study was to explore the effect of digital therapeutics on clinical symptoms of patients with ADHD. Methods Thirty Korean children with ADHD were recruited from Chungnam National University Sejong Hospital during outpatient visits. Subjects were given to undergo digital therapeutics, NUROW (AIMMED Co., Ltd., Seoul, South Korea), which consist of Go/No-Go Task and N-Back/Updating–based training modules, along with a personalized adaptive algorithm system that adjusts the difficulty level according to the user’s performance results. Subjects were advised to use digital therapeutics for 15 minutes every day, over a total of 4 weeks. Subjects were assessed with the Comprehensive Attention Test (CAT) and Childhood Behavior Checklist (CBCL) in baseline and endpoint, while the ADHD-Rating Scale (ARS) was assessed every week and followed up at 1 month, for any delayed effect. ANOVA was used to find any differences within the subjects during hospital visits, and t tests and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used to discover differences in performance before and after the digital therapeutics. Results A total of 30 subjects with ADHD were included for the analyses. Significant reductions were observed in ARS inattention ( p = .004), hyperactivity ( p = .034), and sum scores ( p = .014), although no significant delayed effect was found. For the CBCL, a significant decline in anxiety depression ( p = .041), somatic ( p = .023), internalized ( p = .010), another ( p = .002), and sum ( p = .018) scores were found, while anxiety disorder ( p = .009) and somatic disorder ( p = .021) were significantly lowered in CBCL DSM-5 diagnoses. In the CAT, visual reaction time ( p = .031), sustained attention Beta ( p = .009) and d ( p = .002), and commission error in Flanker’s task ( p = .004), were significantly reduced. Conclusions From these findings, we suggest that there are tangible differences using digital therapeutics in participants with ADHD, especially in subjective behavioral symptoms. Although there are some limitations, such as the small sample sizes and possible medication changes that were not considered, the current study can be a starting foothold in digital therapy for additive treatment choices in ADHD.