The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) just announced more than $1.85 million in grants for research teams to study how digital games can improve players’ health behaviors and outcomes (both brain-based and behavioral).

The press release: Nine Leading Research Teams Selected to Study How Digital Games Improve Players’ Health

• “Digital games are interactive and experiential, and so they can engage people in powerful ways to enhance learning and health behavior change, especially when they are designed on the basis of well-researched strategies,” said (UC Santa Barbara’s Dr. Debra) Lieberman.
• “The pace of growth and innovation in digital games is incredible, and we see tremendous potential to design them to help people stay healthy or manage chronic conditions like diabetes or Parkinson’s disease. However, we need to know more about what works and what does not — and why,” said Paul Tarini, team director for RWJF’s Pioneer Portfolio. “Health Games Research is a major investment to build a research base for this dynamic young field. Further, the insights and ideas that flow from this work will help us continue to expand our imagination of what is possible in this arena.”

All 9 studies sound interesting, 3 of them are closer to what we track:

1. University of California, San Francisco (San Francisco, CA) A Video Game to Enhance Cognitive Health in Older Adults. As people age, they lose some of their ability to sustain their attention and to focus their attention on their main task while ignoring distractions. This study aims to improve these and other related cognitive skills by using a driving game in which Read the rest of this entry »

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation just announced a new initiative of their Pioneer portfolio:

“On November 11-12, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), working with the Monitor Institute, will welcome a small group of researchers, academics, physicians and industry leaders in the fields of neurotechnology, neurodevelopment and behavior change for a “Forum on the Future Impact of Neuroscience and Behavior Change.”

The question: what could neuroscience innovation mean for the future of health and health care?

This blog post contains the list of  participants (honored to be one) and an excellent contextual overview. 

Foundation staff will blog and tweet the event (haven’t seen the hashtag yet); I will link to good materials and offer my own perspective focused on that “neurodevelopment” aspect and, overall, where/ how research and the real-world can “dance” with each other.

This is a press release that went through the wire earlier today. If you are interested, in attending the conference, you can learn more and register Here

Note that below you can find 5 out of the 12 sessions – we will announce the full track tomorrow. To get a 15% off registration fees, you can use discount code: sharp09, when you register.

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The Games for Health Project, organizers of the 5th Annual Games for Health Conference, today announced its first Cognitive Health Track powered by SharpBrains, a leading market research company focused on the brain fitness and the cognitive health market.

The Cognitive Health track builds upon previous year’s sampling of sessions looking at cognitive health and fitness, expanding to a full two-day track at The Games for Health Conference, June 11-12, Boston, MA. The Conference features the largest gathering of organizations interested in the intersection between videogames, health and healthcare.

“There is already a very active cognitive health videogames industry and field of research,” said Ben Sawyer, co-founder of the Games for Health Conference. “We partnered with SharpBrains to bring their expertise in this field our conference planning. Together we have for the first time created a powerful set of sessions and a much needed conversation with researchers, thought-leaders and industry pioneers who will attend the event in June.”

The track features a dozen sessions covering research findings and partnerships, implementation in insurance, consumer and clinical settings, and special sessions looking at innovative areas such as driver safety, healthy aging, attention deficits, stroke/traumatic brain injury, schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis.

“The convergence of interactive media such as videogames with cognitive science opens the door to innovative and scalable approaches to Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Sawyer and I just agreed to create a new Cognitive Health track -Powered by SharpBrains- at the 5th Annual Games for Health Conference. I will host the 11-session track, covering a variety of cognitive health and brain fitness topics and an overview of SharpBrains’ upcoming report The State of the Brain Fitness Software Market 2009.

When and where: June 11-12th at the Hyatt Harborside Hotel in Boston, MA.

Context: The Games for Health Conference is produced by The Serious Games Initiative and supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The conference brings together researchers, medical professionals, decision-makers at healthcare and insurance providers, innovators and game developers. I have attended a few times, and have always been impressed by the caliber of both speakers and everyone in the audience. Really a very good crowd.

Some options to participate?

1) Attend: The current price is $379, with a 15% discount if you use code “sharp09″ (without quotation) when you register Here. Special price for students is $200.

Please note that the Cognitive Health track is being scheduled now – we will announce the detailed agenda during the month of May.

2) Speak: We are looking for innovators, researchers and decision-makers who would like to speak about their ongoing projects related to the use of games and other computer-based technologies for cognitive health.

If interested, please Contact Us, by May 1st, a couple of paragraphs summarizing a) your project, bio and organization, b) what key lessons learned and impressions you would share if given 20 minutes.

3) Advertise/ Sponsor/ Exhibit: To inquire about options, please contact Beth Bryant, one of the conference organizers, at bbryant at dmill.com

We are proud to collaborate with The Games for Health Conference and expand the Cognitive Health dialogue!