The game Sea Hero Quest is designed to save people suffering from dementia. And she more than copes with her task. Its authors received research material that would take 15 thousand years to collect under normal laboratory conditions.
Sea Hero Quest was developed specifically to detect the early stages of the disease in users. According to the PNAS publication, the game often allows you to detect symptoms much earlier than with a standard medical examination. Thanks to this, it is possible to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease and other diseases that may be accompanied by dementia in time.
The game was developed by Glitchers studio in partnership with Deutsce Telekom and with the participation of several European universities. Neuroscientists were involved in the work on it. Together they managed to achieve impressive results, according to Hilary Evans, Executive director of Alzheimer Research UK. It was she who called the data collected by the game “unprecedented”.
In Sea Hero Quest, the player controls a small ship in the ocean, guided by the way map. The game allows you to check both the patient’s memory and his orientation in space. These criteria are very important for detecting dementia. Two minutes in the game, according to PNAS, is equivalent to five hours of research in the laboratory. Since its release in 2016, 3.5 million people in 193 countries have played it.
Sea Hero Quest was launched on mobile devices. Later, a VR version appeared, which, according to Glitchers, collects even more accurate data.