How can you help doctors better understand the impact of different treatments so that they make better choices that improve the patients quality' of life?

By letting them experience a day in the life of somebody who really needs to go to the toilet all the time.

Can you imagine having a nice swim in the ocean during your vacation and suddenly you feel something down below. You quickly search for a toilet, but unfortunately you are too late… This is a reality for patients who have had rectal toxicity after their radiotherapy treatment. Pressing Matters raises awareness among surgeons about the impact of rectal toxicity on people’s quality of life by letting them experience the scenario presented above. By raising awareness, Boston Scientific aims to increase the number of doctors taking precautionary measures to minimize rectal toxicity on their patients.

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Project goal

Help medical professionals understand the positive impact of using precautionary measures on the quality’ of life of patients.

Pressing Matters

Pressing Matters tells the story of a person who has gone on a holiday trip after undergoing prostate radiotherapy. To have a fun and exciting holiday, this person wants to complete as many activities as possible. Sadly, completing the activities won’t be as easy as expected because of their rectal toxicity condition. The person’s holiday will be disrupted by fecal urgencies, interfering with their fun day under the sun.

Gameplay

Throughout the day, players will need to keep a close eye on their soiling meter which shows the risk the avatar currently runs of soiling themselves. Your soiling risk will slowly increase over time until you either visit the toilet or soil yourself, which will reset the risk. The player character wants to complete activities on his to-do list. Longer activities make you feel much better, but you will also run a bigger risk of soiling yourself before being able to complete them, which will ruin your mood. This creates an exciting risk-reward mechanic which draws players into the game and makes them play the scenarios again to get a higher score.