Over the past few decades, we’ve heard tails of people straining their muscles and injuring the tendons in their hands from not properly stretching playing too many video games for extensive periods of time. Well, since the Wii Fit’s induction to the gaming world, “Nintendinitis” has evolved to fit this generation of gaming related injuries called “Wiitis.” It’s extending to the entire body.
That’s right, numerous injury reports are popping up around the globe that are directly associated with the Nintendo Wii. The truth of the matter is that the Wii doesn’t injure people, it points out how fragile our bodies have become.
According to Karen A. Eley, a plastic surgery resident and doctoral candidate at Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust in Great Britain, said, “Before these types of games were introduced, patients typically presented with ligament injuries of the hand from intensive use of [video game] hand-held controls.” With the introduction of the Wii Fit, “Now, the injuries seem to affect any region of the body.”
Many of these injuries relate to users falling off the balance board that result in anything from bruises, sprains, slight fractures, and in rare cases, head injuries.
Eley adds, “I have not encountered many injuries of this nature,” she stressed. “I think that in some respects some people are just rather unlucky. I am sure that many more people twist their ankles when they miss their footing on the Wii-fit balance boards, but the injury is not significant enough to seek medical treatment. We only see the ones that are particularly severe.”
On a positive note, the Wii does encourage people to get off the couch and become more active in their daily lives. And often times, these are the type of individuals who are more injury prone.
“And as with any activity, it is this group that are more likely to sustain strains and sprains,” she said. “[But] hopefully, playing these games will result in people becoming interested in participating in exercise, aiding in our fight against obesity, heart disease and diabetes.”
So get out there and enjoy your Wii. You may injure yourself in the process, but at least you won’t die from obesity, and you’ll have a pretty nerdy cool story to go with it.
Source: Health Day
The most notable injury that comes to mind in my history was NES related. I was about 10 and my friend wouldn’t stop going on and on about how I wasn’t sharing the controller. My mom finally yelled at me from the kitchen to let him play. I threw the controller at him, hit in right above the left eye, and got to spend the rest of the afternoon in the ER while my friend had 4 stitches put in.
I still feel completely justified in my actions and he still has the scar
My brother once, somehow, split his right thumb open while rapidly pressing a button. Aside from that, it’s been nothing but thumb blisters for video game related injuries. Games like Killer Instinct and Marvel vs Capcom 2 need more than the basic injury warnings.
The opposite case for me, the wii sorted me out.
After spinal surgery for a none wii induced injury that almost paralysed me I underwent months of physio which while helping rebuild the muscle failed to sort out the nerve damage which left me with a cold numbness in the toes of my right foot. The prognosis was that it might ease over time but was most likely there to stay and after a few months I’d given up on it ever going away. We bought a wii not long after and after adding a balance board I became hooked on Shaun White’s snowboarding. After only a few sessions I noticed that I had begun to regain the feeling in my toes and within a couple of months was back to normal.