Another Wii Story

The Wii story is in the last 3 or so minutes of this video. The most interesting part of that news piece for me was actually the USC PT introducing herself as Dr. (a whole 'nother bag of worms in PT). The Wii part of it is just another log on the fire that is the debate over "Wii-hab". The PT (and other health related) blogging community has a lot to say about it:

PT Rover

NPA Think Tank

MyPTSpace - EIM

Science to Life

Physio Info-blog - here is the journal article he is referring to.

Other Wii Articles:

Virtual gaming no replacement for real exercise!

Kevin MD - interesting comment on that one as to the OT vs. PT debate... I think we can certainly work together to be more productive, and I will leave it at that for now...

Speaking of OT - this OT student blog post has a Wii mention

A research team was able to extract rich information about a person's reaching movements while they performed a learning task using the Wii. Here is the actual journal article.

Use of Virtual Reality for burn victims.

Surgeons hone skills with Wii.

As a reminder I work with a Spinal Cord Injury population and we do in fact have a virtual reality room with Wii and an upper body ergometer that can be used to propel a virtual car and steer it left and right (although we had more problems with that one than actual play time). We also have recreational therapists on staff and most patients receive 2-30 minute sessions a week of recreational therapy, the TR's (because RT is reserved for respiratory therapist) also go on community outings along with the PT or OT. Through my observations the Wii along with dominoes, connect four and numerous other games are a large part of what the TR's work on.

Anyway, we have group activities every day as one of the three hours of therapy that all patients receive. I work with the action group which consists of patients that have a little more function than others, in particular almost all of our members can stand. We have a different topic every day and once every few Friday's we have "Fun Friday's" where we play some games (including the Wii). While we were playing we had the patients stand supported with a walker and a PT as needed. One particularly quiet patient was having a groggy day and in his complaints added: "he research has shown that the Wii helps people lose weight, I'm skinny, why am I doing this?"

There is a general image problem for PT in the public... how many people really know what we do? Now they start seeing news pieces with PT and the Wii... thats not why I spent 6 figures on 3 extra years of grad school and plan on doing an extra year long residency... PT is the neuromusculoskeletal specialists... we can do SOOOOO much to help peoples bodies feel better from SOOOOO many ailments, but the way PR has been working to date we are known for blackberry thumb, gardening tips, the Wii-hab craze and so much other niche areas that it is starting to get a little upsetting for someone like myself who has gone to schools to promote PT and physical activity to children. Oh brother...

Overall, I completely appreciate the psychological distraction the Wii can provide and the "break from the mundane" that some of the articles refer to (although, a better PT will never allow for a mundane routine). However, the Wii is very limiting in how much physical activity it allows and rarely is going to work on an area of weakness that translates into functional outcomes that are meaningful to a patient/client's activities of daily living. Speaking of which I am going for a run outside :-D

Wii Injury.com

Wii Have A Problem

Wii Injury Report