Wiiitis… The Nintendo Disease?

Thundercun7

BOSTON (Reuters) - When Dr. Julio Bonis awoke one Sunday morning with a sore shoulder, he could not figure out what he had done. It felt like a sports injury, but he had been a bit of a couch potato lately.

Then he remembered his new Wii.

Bonis, 29, had spent hours playing Nintendo's new video game in which players simulate real movements. Bonis had been playing simulated tennis.

It was not quite tennis elbow, he decided.
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"The variant in this patient can be labelled more specifically as 'Wiiitis,'" Bonis, a family practice physician, wrote in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine.

"The treatment consisted of ibuprofen for one week, as well as complete abstinence from playing Wii video games. The patient recovered fully."

Wiiitis -- pronounced "wee-eye-tis" -- is the latest ailment to develop from the video game era, beginning with Space Invaders' wrist in 1981, which was caused by the repeated button mashing required by the popular arcade game.

Nintendo's Wii game can captivate for hours and "unlike in the real sport, physical strength and endurance are not limiting factors," Bonis of the Research Group in Biomedical Informatics in Barcelona, Spain, wrote.

"What convinced me to send the case report was that a friend of mine, after playing 'Wii Sports' suffered from a similar complaint," Bonis told Reuters in an e-mail. "I have not found other cases in my clinical practice, but it is probably an underdiagnosed condition."

It is not the first time Nintendo has received attention in the medical field.

In 1990, a Wisconsin doctor characterized the thumb soreness brought on by pushing the buttons on a controller as "Nintendinitis" after it affected a 35-year-old woman who played a Nintendo game without interruption for five hours.

With virtual golf, boxing, baseball and bowling already on the market, "future games could involve different and unexpected groups of muscles," Bonis said. "Physicians should be aware that there may be multiple, possibly puzzling presentations of Wiiitis."

Bonis said he still plays the games, "but I try to use it with moderation. Sometimes it's hard to do!"


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lazyperson555

Wow. U don't need ibuprofen for that. That doctors an idiot. He filed aa report because of sore muscles and claime it "Wiiitis" I relly have nothing to say to that.

Haz

This just highlights the stupidity of even professional people. Like any movement, you are putting pressure on your joints.

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Trulen 

I wonder how this guy was playing wii sports if he was using muscles he didn't use regularly...

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There are only two things that are infinite: Human stupidity and the universe. I'm not sure about the latter.

- Albert Einstein.

Thundercun7

Handstand Wario ware mby

R2D2C3PO

I'm not a doctor, but I posted similar findings right here on this forum back in March:
http://www.wiichat.com/nintendo-wii-...endonitis.html

sagema

He just wants his name in the history books. The USA is overloaded with egotystical tards like this guy who drag the country closer and closer to it's collapse. According to CNN we're all millionares. I wish that was true.

ZiG

I dislocated my shoulder playing baseball the first day I had my wii.

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m0nsta

Sounds like RSI to me (repetitive strain injury) and this is only gonna be for those fat kids that do squat all exercise

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SLrocket

wow are people OUTOF SHAPE or what?! its not that heavy!