Picture of Health: Video games can help recovery of intensive care patients - Health care, wellness, food nutrition, exercise, medical research news from reporters who know the halls of the world's top hospital

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October 3, 2011

Video games can help recovery of intensive care patients

wii fit A little child's play may help intensive care patients through their recovery.

A new Johns Hopkins study found that interactive video games may enhance physical therapy for patients in intensive care.

The findings were published online in the Journal of Critical Care. A patient's stamina and balance improved with use of the video games.

The researchers studied 22 patients admitted to ICU for respiratory failure, sepsis, cardiovascular disease and other health problems. The patients participated in 42 physical therapy sessions that included 20 minutes of playing on the Nintendo Wii or Wii Fit video game consoles. Activities included boxing, bowling, balance board use and others games that improved stamina and balance.

The study had some limitations because of its size and scope and the researchers said the next step would be a broader study to look at further benefits of video games.

Video games have also been found to improve motor function in recovering stroke patients.

Posted by Andrea Walker at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Medical studies

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About Picture of Health

Meredith Cohn has been a reporter since 1991, covering everything from politics and airlines to the environment and medicine. A runner since junior high and a particular eater for almost as long, she tries to keep up on health and fitness trends. Her aim is to bring you the latest news and information from the local and national medical and wellness communities.

Andrea K. Walker knows it’s weird to some people, but she has a fascination with fitness, diseases, medicine and other health-related topics. She subscribes to a variety of health and fitness magazines and becomes easily engrossed in the latest research in health and science. An exercise fanatic, she’s probably tried just about every fitness activity there is. Her favorites are running, yoga and kickboxing. So it is probably fitting that she has been assigned to cover the business of healthcare and to become a regular contributor to this blog. Andrea has been at The Sun for nearly 10 years, covering manufacturing, retail , airlines and small and minority business. She looks forward to telling readers about the latest health news.

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