Fujitsu Asia Develops Singapore’s First Web Portal for Attention-Deficit Hyperactive Disorder and Childhood Anxiety

Singapore, September 23, 2009 — Fujitsu, a leading provider of business, information technology and communications solutions, today announced ROC-N-ASH, Singapore’s first web portal dedicated to attention-deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) and childhood anxiety.

The portal (www.roc-n-ash.com) offers role-play computer games, video clips and other multimedia resources that educate caregivers and children on these two medical conditions and complement clinicians’ existing therapy regimes.

ROC-N-ASH was developed by Fujitsu Asia (the ASEAN headquarters of Japan-based Fujitsu Ltd) in collaboration with the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) and e-learning company ASKnLearn. Fujitsu Asia played a major role in this collaboration by leveraging on its extensive IT capabilities to solve real-world needs.

According to Mr John Siow, Deputy Director for Network Applications at Fujitsu Asia, the idea for ROC-N-ASH originated when Fujitsu Asia approached IMH to consider using games to assess and treat mental disorders. Through the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), the Ministry of Health, and The Enterprise Challenge (TEC) Joint Healthcare Call-for-Collaboration programme, IMH eventually tasked Fujitsu Asia with creating a web portal to achieve the following:

• promote and manage the mental well-being of children and adolescents
• facilitate the early detection and intervention for children with ADHD or childhood anxiety
• encourage various stakeholders (such as schools and caregivers) to support the therapy regimes of children with ADHD or childhood anxiety

Mr Siow added that one of Fujitsu Asia’s main challenges was to ensure that the portal appeals to children in terms of its theme, content and user-friendliness. Another major consideration was the need to generate reports – by processing data generated when users access the game resources on the portal– for subsequent clinical assessment and treatment.

Fujitsu Asia worked closely with the educational and clinical psychologists from IMH, to implement ROC-N-ASH as a role-play computer game, with the portal providing calendar of local events, mental wellness books & articles information, and incorporating data analytic function to churn out information for follow-up medical analyses.

“ADHD and childhood anxiety are two of the most common disorders seen at the Child Guidance Clinic, which is a facility run by IMH. IMH thus decided to leverage on information technology for medical professionals, caregivers and educators to detect early signs of such disorders, and to facilitate therapy regimes thereafter. With ROC-N-ASH, Fujitsu Asia demonstrates its longstanding ability to offer IT services and solutions for the healthcare industry. We are confident that ROC-N-ASH will benefit the children it is designed to help,” said Mr Siow.

Games or other IT-based applications are potential methods to promote mental well-being in innovative ways. “There is a continuous need to explore how multimedia content could be applied to complement other areas of clinical assessment and treatment,” added Mr Siow.