Leveraging Digital Therapeutics for ADHD Management
In this video filmed on-site at Psych Congress 2025, faculty member Timothy Wilens, MD, discusses the role that digital therapeutics may play in the management of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Dr Wilens first provides an overview of the ways in which currently available, Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved digital therapeutics can be used to supplement pharmacotherapy in supporting treatment goals. He then offers a glimpse into how emerging technologies may continue to shape treatment options for this patient population and expand digital toolboxes for virtual providers.
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Read the Transcript
Timothy Wilens, MD: Hi, my name is Tim Wilens and I'm the Chief of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and I'm a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
Psych Congress Network: What role do digital therapeutics play in the management of ADHD?
Wilens: I’m very excited about the pipeline—not only pipeline new medicines for ADHD, because we have some in development—but the pipeline of neurotherapeutics, and part of the neurotherapeutics, I would put into that basket, things like digital therapeutics.
There are already FDA-approved digital therapeutics and they’re helpful. There are new ones in development that are more gamified, more exciting for people to continue to be very vigilant about. They help not only the core symptoms of ADHD—usually attentional symptoms, that’s where most of the digital therapeutics are—but some of them address the problems with organization, time management, things we call executive functioning. They help the executive function component of ADHD, things that maybe the medicines sort of help, but don’t help enough. They supplement medications in some cases, and they can be very helpful.
One of the considerations of digital therapeutics: you have to do them, and you have to do them over and over. One session is not going to be adequate. You have to really internalize what they’re training you to do, and then you do touch-ups with them. You have to be devoted to it.
I would say the digital therapeutics, especially as I’m hearing now, with some AI-enhancements, are really going to be very powerful to help people and are going to become supplemental. I tell clinicians now, stay tuned, because our next generation are going to have lots more of this, and rather than it being a Pandora’s box, learn about it. Get a good sense of it, be part of the change as opposed to feeling like a victim to the change, because that is coming down the pike. I know of companies that are working in that space right now, and my experience with those kinds of interventions so far have been positive in terms of how they can help people, so we just need to harness it to help people with ADHD.
Hi, I’m Tim Wilens, and I want to thank you so much for joining us. I hope that you found some of the comments and some of the discussion we had today helpful for your clinical practice.
Timothy Wilens, MD, is the Chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and (Co) Director of the Center for Addiction Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He is a Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Wilens specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD, substance use disorders, and bipolar disorder. Widely published, Dr. Wilens has more than 350 original articles, reviews, chapters, books and editorials to his credit. Dr. Wilens is a consultant to the National Football League, Major/Minor League Baseball, Bay Cove Human Services and Gavin House and is consistently named one of the Best Doctors in Boston and in America for psychiatry.
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