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| Nintendo Wii |
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| one example of a modern spirometer |
Recently, scientists have started to study whether kids with cystic fibrosis can use video games as motivation for them to stick to their treatments. Cystic fibrosis is a disease that causes mucus to build up in the lungs and airways of the body, which makes it extremely hard for the infected person to breathe. One treatment for kids with cystic fibrosis is "huffing", which is heavy breathing that helps get rid of the buildup. A problem with this treatment, however, is that many children would rather do something more fun instead, such as video games. Because of this, scientists have tried to link video games with their treatment, and created a study to see if active video games, such as Wii Fit and Wii Sports, will help with their treatment. The way scientists set up the experiment is by comparing the amount of breathing the children did when playing video games, versus not playing them. For 2-4 weeks, kids would be around video game equipment, but not be able to play the video games, and scientists would record how much they followed through with their breathing therapy and how effective it was. Then, for the same amount of time, kids would be allowed to play video games and the scientists would record and compare the results to the non-video game time period. They used spirometers to record how much air their lungs could contain and compared the volumes before the study, during the non-video game time period, and the time period when the children could play video games. After scientists received the results from the study, they concluded that participating in video games does in fact help children stick to their treatments. However, scientists did not know if it was merely the presence of the video games that made patients stick to their goal more or if it was in fact the activity from the video games.
If scientists can figure out a way to get children to utilize video games, and possibly other technology, for treatments, many diseases will become much less of a nuisance. It could even help many more people survive because they will be more focused and motivated to stick to their treatments. In addition, scientists may be able to come up with new and more effective treatments for diseases that were thought to be incurable. This will make many diseases less of an issue so that doctors can focus on more important issues, and it will allow patients to be not as inconvenienced. This breakthrough is important to medical science as it will help many children suffering, not just those with cystic fibrosis.
Article Citation:
Greenwood, Veronique. "Can Video Games Help Sick Kids Stick to Their
Treatments?" Discover Magazine 2 May 2011: n. pag. Discover Magazine. Web.
7 May 2011. <http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/05/02/
can-video-games-help-sick-kids-stick-to-their-treatments/>.
Image Citations:
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2009/06/easportsactive.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ea/Spiro_solo.jpg
