Picking Apart the First Documented Case of "Wiiitis"
We've all heard of sports related injuries, but until recently, there was no such thing as a 'Wii-Sports'-related injury. Now, in the June 2007 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr Julio Bonis first coined the term Wii-itis, and now it has been investigated by a team at the Mayo Clinic. In an article in this May's issue of 'Skeletal Radiology,' doctors diagnosed a 22-year-old boy with the condition, which they defined as soreness and inflammation caused by too much Wii Bowling, which is one of the games on 'Wii-Sports.' The abstract states that an MRI scan revealed:
"marked T2-weighted signal abnormality within several muscles of the shoulder and upper arm, without evidence of macroscopic partial- or full-thickness tearing of the muscle or of intramuscular hematoma."
Now, this sounds really scary to the layman, and the first time we read it, we didn't understand what was going on. But dug a little deeper and translated that statement into: No serious muscle tears, or internal bleeding (hematoma), and the t-2 signals are an indication of the little tears in the muscle that cause soreness. So, basically, don't swear off Wii-playing playing yet, because this first documented case of wii-itis is a 22-year-old with a sore shoulder. The article goes on to suggest that the cause of this soreness may be:
"[L]ittle resistance is offered by the light 200 g handheld controller to the aggressive maneuvers made by the participant, which may lead to awkward deceleration forces being applied to the upper extremity.... It is likely that, during the deceleration phase of swinging the Wii controller, there is significant eccentric loading on the participant's muscle groups, causing the ultrastructural damage, as demonstrated in this case."
The doctors think that the controller's light weight is the cause of the muscle strain, but can you imagine playing the Nintendo Wii if the controller were properly weighted for a bowling ball or baseball bat? That would really cause some damage.
It should also be noted that ultrastructural damage is usually due to stress from exercise, and is the cause of the soreness you feel a day or so after working out, so the Wii-related injuries are about as serious as that.
Nevertheless you can expect some new warnings on your Wii system in the future probably telling you to stretch out your shoulder before gaming. We can't wait.
Related Links:
- Seniors Going Nuts for Nintendo Wii
- Are Your Gadgets Making You Sick?
- Cigarette Smoke Causes Wii to Malfunction
