Game Information
| Title | Brain Powered Games - Africa |
| Presenter(s) | Brian Winn, Bryan Novak, Michael Boivin, Bruno Giordani |
| Session | Conference Reception, Game Exhibition, and Poster Session |
| Time | Thursday, October 16, 7:00p-10:00p |
| Location | Ballroom |
| Format | Game Exhibition |
| Description | Of the 500 million clinical episodes of malaria occurring globally each year, over 70% occur in Africa. Ten percent of these infections will become complicated by severe malaria anemia (SMA) or cerebral malaria (CM), killing an estimated 1 million children ages 5 years or younger annually in sub-Saharan Africa. Those who survive often experience substantial rates of neurologic morbidity. This can eventually lead to many more serious conditions including cognitive impairment, epilepsy, and comas. Cerebral malaria can have a very profound effect on the mental capacity of its victims. Children ages 4-12 can have their mental capacity reduced to that of a 3-month-old child as a result of the disease.
As a result of the scale-up of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), more perinatally HIV infected African children are now surviving into adolescence and receiving secondary and high school education. While HAART has clearly reduced incidence of severe forms of HIV encephalopathy, deficits persist in expressive language, attention, working memory, and executive functions. Currently there is poor understanding of the frequency and cofactors of such neurocognitive impairment and a complete lack of interventions to address them within resource-limited settings. Computerized cognitive rehabilitation therapy (CCRT), may provide a valuable tool to address both Malaria and HIV-associated neurocognitive deficits in this population. Brain Powered Games is a growing collection of digital games developed in the Games for Entertainment and Learning (GEL) Lab at Michigan State University. Each game focuses on exercising one or more cognitive abilities, including attention, memory, language, visual/spatial functions, and executive functions. Working with MSU neurologists and psychiatrists, a version of Brain Powered Games has been customized for the African context. The games have been piloted as a CCRT in Malawi with children with cerebral malaria and in Uganda with HIV inflected children with successful results. |