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GameBike and GamePads in Physical Education Classes?
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If you've ever gone through physical therapy rehabilitation, you know what a miserable experience this can be. I know enough about this subject to be dangerous. This is due to the fact that Source Brands, Inc, the manufacturer of GameBike and GamePad, owns Hudson Fitness Products which makes several excellent products that serve this rehabilitation market, including upper body exercisers, treadmills and other PT equipment.
The problem with physical therapy is that it usually hurts like heck. Some patients say that "PT" really stands for "Pain & Torture." I know a few physical therapists and they hate to be a part of anything that makes a patient uncomfortable or experience pain. Especially if this pain screams: STOP RIGHT NOW!! YOU'RE KILLIN' ME! Unfortunately, this pain is a part of their job.
Coming back from a stroke, or broken bone or any kind of surgery through a physical therapy regime can be agonizingly painful. However, here's the worst part...It's Booooooring!
Well, admirers of Marquis de Sade, the pain and suffering have ended in some physical therapy offices. And to what do we attribute this great medical advancement?
Active Gaming. What else?
Yep. Products such as the GameBike and Nintendo's fabulous product Wii, now have a role in the PT world. In a recent Associated Press story about this change, Mr. James Osburn, who manages the rehabilitation services at Herrin Hospital in Southern Illinois, noted, "In the Wii system, because it's kind of a game format, creates this inner competitiveness. Even though you may be boxing or playing tennis against some figure on the screen, it's amazing how many of our patients want to beat their opponent."
"When people can refocus their attention from the tediousness of the physical (therapy) task, oftentimes they do much better," Osburn said.
In the case of GameBike, this "refocus" is due to the patented steering mechanism, the plug-and-play connector that allows for play on any video game console and the fact that the pedal speed is directly tied to the speed of the computer characters. This allows the rider to literally become a part of the game. The better the eye-to-hand coordination...the more likely the 55 year old stoke survivor or 10 year old videogame junkie are to get more points and enjoy more success in the game. Meanwhile, the therapy occurs with no tedium.
Not being a physician, (and those of you who might be sick sometime when I'm on the scene can thank your lucky stars for this!) I can't propose a cogent medical argument for this. I theorize that when the adrenaline starts flowing as the result of the actually participating in the chase game, some part of the brain says..."Hey, I'm behind those little binary guys and I need to pick up the pace to WIN! Forget about my leg...or other damaged appendage...let's kick some butte'!"
It's probably evolutionary. A billion years ago, the organisms that moved faster lived and they passed that trait on to their offspring. Now we want to WIN and don't really have any control over this. In the meantime, if we are rehabbing from a torn ligament and we jump on a GameBike, the competitiveness that probably got us the torn ligament in the first place, kicks in.
If you have read some of the previous CLUEs, or you have clicked on the University of British Columbia research from Dr. Darren Warburten found on this web site, you know that he and his colleagues proved that many more positive health benefits result from subjects riding a GameBike rather than a standard (and boring) exercise cycle. It would seem to be possible that the brain can be fooled into thinking that playing a Wii game or playing a chase game on the GameBike is FUN...not the torture of physical therapy. Talk about your positive effects of neuroplasticity!
If active gaming products like Wii and GameBike can make physical therapy bearable, just imagine what they can do for helping you get a better workout with less tedium.
So, have you gone through physical therapy and found a way to get around the pain and torture?