Forum on video games for mental health

Abstract

© 2018 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Over the recent years, mental health has become a major disease burden globally [28]. Untreated mental illness has serious consequences for the individual, resulting in lower quality of life [21] and has severe negative effects on the global economy. Accumulated, the tangible and intangible costs of depression and anxiety alone are estimated at $1 trillion USD per year [5]; projections suggest that similar costs can be expected for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s [26]. A dire situation which requires creative, flexible, and scaling solutions. According to the WHO Mental Health Atlas [25], in many low and middl..