July 15, 2007

Wii is great for rehabilitation

Not only is the Wii game system a great source for entertainment but it is becoming a therapeutic aid helping with patient rehabilitation. WakeMed hospitals in North Carolina has begun to use the Wii to help with patient therapy. "Patients become vested in it, and when they're vested it has a lot more meaning," says Karen Ambrose, a physical therapist at the hospital. "If you can get them to want to do it," she says of the often grueling process of physical rehabilitation, "they'll do it."

One of the problems in getting rehab patients to become more involved in recovery is getting them to buy in to physical therapy. After that they can move forward in their recovery process.

According to the recent News and Observer report, the first hospital thought to have used the Wii for rehab is the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. But WakeMed's Recreational Therapy Department heard about it from their person that delivers wheelchairs - he mentioned that "he had a Wii and thought the movement aspect might translate well to rehab".

News and Observer
July 12, 2007
Joe Miller, Staff Writer

The therapeutic Wii
Nintendo game system helps patients rehabilitate after injury or illness

It took a car accident and the onset of Parkinson's disease, but 68-year-old Nathan Woodlief may finally have a chance at beating his grandson at video games.
"He laughs at me," Woodlief says of the response his woeful performance elicits.

Junior may not be laughing, though, when Gramps returns from the hospital empowered by the device that nursed him back to health: the Nintendo Wii.

Wii? Oui.

The video game that couldn't stay on store shelves at Christmas is fast earning a second life as a useful tool in helping victims of debilitating diseases and accidents get back on their feet. Read more...

July 9, 2007

Are we becoming addicted to the internet and gadgets?

An interesting debate topic is brewing as to whether the internet and gadgets have become addictive. Certainly at times it seems some folks may be of this persuasion but there is no real proof this is a problem - at least for now...

An interesting article posted July 3, 2007, on CNN discusses this question.

The article suggests gadget and internet addiction "could be said to be part of a serious current debate -- the debate over whether technology addiction, and especially Internet addiction, is a real mental disorder". The article further states "At its annual conference last month, members of the American Medical Association considered a proposal to label excessive video and online game playing as an addiction, but decided to table it until further study".
CNN Online
July 3, 2007
Jonathan Mandell

Are gadgets, and the internet, actually addictive?

CNN - When the users of BlackBerries could not send or receive e-mails for 11 hours in April because of a glitch in the system, hospital administrator Paul Levy pronounced it a "national disaster" because of all the BlackBerry "addicts" forced into withdrawal.

Writing in his blog, Levy -- the president of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts -- proclaimed himself proud of the swift actions of his hospital.

"We set up our crisis center ... staffed by our Psychiatry Department," Levy wrote. "Cases of withdrawal were handled ... with a minimal use of antidepressant drugs." The one downside, he wrote, were the "damaged walls and broken windows" because of the "many devices ... vigorously thrown."

Levy was joking. There was no activity in his hospital as a result of the BlackBerry blackout, other than some whining from BlackBerry-obsessed colleagues.

But his satire could be said to be part of a serious current debate -- Read more...