Serious games for health: the four main uses in healthcare
Serious games for health are games whose main purpose is education or treatment support in healthcare. A Norwegian research fact sheet sorts them into four areas: rehabilitation, health promotion, medical education and distraction during painful procedures.
Updated
The four areas of serious games for health
The Norwegian Centre for E-health Research (ehealthresearch.no) published Fact Sheet 11/2016 on serious games in healthcare, written by O. Saadatfard and E. Årsand. It defines serious games as games in which education is the primary goal, and it sorts their use in healthcare into four areas. The sheet remains online as a two-page PDF.
Rehabilitation games aim to improve cognitive and motor skills by making exercises easier and more fun through simulation and virtual reality. The sheet names the Computer Assisted Rehabilitation Environment (CAREN) as an example. Health promotion games cover awareness, diet, exercise, hygiene and social abilities. Its examples are Air Academy: The Quest for Airtopia, which raises asthma awareness among primary school students, and The Fantastic Food Challenge, which teaches mothers aged 18 to 50 about healthy food choices.
Medical education games give professionals a simulated environment meant to reduce medical errors. The sheet cites Virtual ED for acute and critical care, Code Orange for triage and incident response, and a Total Knee Arthroplasty game for surgical trainees. The fourth area uses games to pull a patient's attention away from pain during treatment, with Street Luge by Fifth Dimension Technologies tested during pediatric IV placement.
Areas and examples at a glance
| Area | Who it serves | Example named in the fact sheet |
|---|---|---|
| Rehabilitation | Patients rebuilding cognitive and motor skills | Computer Assisted Rehabilitation Environment (CAREN) |
| Health promotion and education | Children, parents and patients with a long-term condition | Air Academy: The Quest for Airtopia; The Fantastic Food Challenge |
| Medical education | Doctors, nurses and surgical trainees | Virtual ED; Code Orange; Total Knee Arthroplasty game |
| Pain distraction | Patients during painful procedures | Street Luge by Fifth Dimension Technologies |
Source: Fact Sheet 11/2016, Norwegian Centre for E-health Research, read in November 2026.
Examples from this field and where they stand
Several projects in this area come from studios outside the fact sheet. Arch Virtual built the VR Airway Lab for Adtalem Global Education, an immersive 3D experience that prepares learners for simulation-lab or mannequin-based airway training. Tako Dojo, by Grifo Multimedia, was designed for young patients with diabetes to support self-management and treatment adherence. VRPhysio, an Israeli start-up, used gaming technology for neck, spinal and other injuries.
As of November 2026 the Arch Virtual website still describes the Airway Lab as a past project and a February 2019 post reports a pilot study of it, but no page states that the training is currently offered. The VRPhysio web address now forwards to a page where the domain is listed for sale. No official page for Tako Dojo was found.
The strongest evidence on virtual reality in this field comes from a 2017 systematic review in Psychological Medicine by Daniel Freeman and colleagues. It identified 285 studies: 86 on assessment, 45 on theory development and 154 on treatment, with anxiety the most studied condition at 192. The authors found that VR exposure-based treatments can reduce anxiety disorders, and that the methodological quality of studies was generally low.
Questions about serious games for health
What are serious games for health used for?
The Norwegian Centre for E-health Research names four uses: rehabilitation of cognitive and motor skills, health promotion and education, medical education, and distracting patients during painful treatment.
Do virtual reality games work for mental health treatment?
The best-established finding is for anxiety. A 2017 review of 285 studies concluded that VR exposure-based treatments can reduce anxiety disorders, while noting that the quality of most studies was low.
Can the VR Airway Lab still be used?
That could not be confirmed. Arch Virtual lists it as a past project for Adtalem Global Education, and no page found says whether it is offered now.