Wii being used in physcial therapy in the U.S.

According to the Boston Channel many hospitals in America are turning to the Wii to help with Physical therapy or rehabilitation.

Hospital officials say that many of their patients find traditional methods of physical therapy repetitive and boring, not to mention painful. The introduction of Wii Sports into the routine offers a more fun and distracting way to get healthy.

Doctors claim that the fact that Wii Sports involves a lot of the same movements that real life sports involve means they are at least in some way beneficiary for patients.

The Hines Veterans Affairs Hospital west of Chicago, Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Southern Illinois Healthcare are among the hospitals in the U.S. who use the Wii as part of the rehab programme.

Although there hasn’t been any scientific testing as to the effectiveness of Wii Sports with regard to physical therapy, Lars Oddsson, director of the Sister Kenny Research Center at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, is working with the University of Minnesota to develop a study to measure how effective the Wii is for rehab.

Read the full story on The Boston Channel.

This comes after last month’s study which proved surgeons who had been playing with the Wii before surgery scored higher in tool control than those who had not warmed up.