Wii Fit Store

In an new article over at Nursing Spectrum, Vikki Newton writes that patients undergoing rehabilitation at St. Francis Hospital are using Wii Fit as part of their rehabilitation program.

Few patients think of the hospital as a place to improve their golf swing, play tennis, or rack up a perfect bowling score, but with the use of the Nintendo Wii video game system, patients undergoing physical or occupational therapy at St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie, N.Y, are getting “Wii fit.”

“The Wii doesn’t replace conventional physical therapy,” says Susan Hecht, RN, Nursing Rehabilitation liaison, at St. Francis Hospital. “We use it in conjunction with traditional therapy.” Rehab patients at St. Francis and at other hospitals around the country enjoy Wii-simulated bowling, tennis, driving, and golf, and, in the process, reorient muscles, tendons, and ligaments to the activities of daily living.

Although Nintendo doesn’t promote Wii for rehabilitation, a review of the literature shows that it is fast becoming a mainstay in physical therapy units. Even the U.S. armed services hospitals here and abroad are using Wii in physical therapy for injured servicemen and women. St. Francis has been using Wii for about eight months, according to Hecht, who acquired the Wii gaming console for the hospital and says she would like to get a second one. Hecht, a 14-year veteran of nursing who has been at St. Francis for nine years, says she finds patients’ physical improvement from playing Wii games and their enthusiasm for the technology very rewarding.

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 4:27 am and is filed under Wii Fit News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.