JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

ADHD has a considerable impact on the subject's daily life. Some difficulties with timing deficits may be associated with deficient attention, poor reading, language skills and executive function. Music therapy has demonstrated its efficacy in symptomatology aspects in many disorders. Video games may prove to be a useful assessment and treatment tool to complement the difficulties of multimodal treatment in ADHD.

Objective:

1) To analyze the evidence of beneficial aspects of music in the symptomatology of ADHD through systematic review; 2) To propose the application of music in videogames following music therapy strategies.

Methods:

Searches were conducted in Pubmed, Embase, PsycInfo, and Cochrane. We used the following search syntaxis: ((MUSIC[Title/Abstract]) OR (MUSIC THERAPY[Title/Abstract])) AND (ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER[MeSH or thesaurus term]).

Results:

Of the 70 records identified, 13 were eligible in which music can be beneficial in different domains of ADHD. Music in video games was generally found to be beneficial for ADHD patients. Regarding the proposed application of the aspects of music to therapeutic video games for ADHD, some paradigms of timing and music therapy were considered in the proposed design of video games.

Conclusions:

Applications for music in video games to improve ADHD treatment are proposed.