Video Games May Cause Joint Pain in Kids

Oddly enough, it took a child to bring this information to light, but it could be a serious problem. According to a study spearheaded by St. Louis student, 11-year-old Deniz Ince, children who play an hour or more per day of video games have a higher chance of having wrist and finger pain. The study will be presented this week at the American College of Rheumatology’s annual meeting.

Lucky for Deniz, his dad is a neurologist, so Deniz, his father and researchers from New York University set out to see if Deniz’s idea was right. A regular Wii-player, Deniz had been noticing that his hand hurt when he was squeezing an orange.

The study involved having 171 of Deniz’s peers fill out questionnaires about their video game usage and if they experienced any pain. The findings showed that:

• about 50% used video games less than one hour per day
• about 33% played between one to two hours per day
• 7% played two to three hours per day
• 6% played more than three hours per day

The amount of pain the children reported depended on their play time and their age. What the researchers also learned was that the younger children (the group was 7 to 12 years old) had more pain and their pain came with shorter periods of play than older children. For each hour played, the chances of joint pain increased by 50%.

Where the pain was varied, but almost 12% of the children reported that the pain was in their fingers and it was severe enough to limit their playing. Not far behind, at nearly 10%, were the children who complained of wrist pain, also which limited playing.

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Image: PhotoXpress.com