BACKGROUND
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has a considerable impact on an individual's daily life. Some difficulties with timing deficits may be associated with deficiencies in attention, reading, language skills or executive function. Music therapy has demonstrated its efficacy in reducing symptomatology in many disorders. Video games may prove to be a useful assessment and treatment tool in compensating for the difficulties with multimodal treatment in ADHD.
OBJECTIVE
1) To analyze the evidence that music is beneficial in reducing the symptomatology of ADHD, using systematic review; 2) To propose the application of music in video games following music therapy strategies.
METHODS
Searches were conducted in PubMed, Embase, PsycINFO, Cochrane and gray literature (Google Scholar and WorldCat). We used the following search syntax: ((MUSIC[Title/Abstract]) OR (MUSIC THERAPY[Title/Abstract])) AND (ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER[MeSH or thesaurus term]).
RESULTS
Of the 70 records identified, 17 provided findings that music can be beneficial in various domains of ADHD. Music in video games was generally found to be beneficial for people with ADHD. Regarding the proposed application of aspects of music to therapeutic video games for ADHD, some paradigms in timing and music therapy were considered in the proposed design of video games.
CONCLUSIONS
Improving ADHD treatment through the application of music in video games is proposed.
CLINICALTRIAL