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Wii Boosts Parkinson's Treatments
mmmscience writes "Scientists are investigating the use of Wii Sports as a form of treatment for Parkinson's sufferers. After a four-week study, researchers found that rounds of tennis, bowling, and boxing improved rigidity, movement, fine motor skills, and energy levels as well as decreasing the occurrence of depression. It is thought that combining exercise with video games helps to increase levels of dopamine, a chemical that is deficient in Parkinson's. The therapy is gaining notoriety under the name Wii-hab."
They don't know what causes it exactly, but most research indicates it is caused by problems with the dopamine system. In a particularly unfortunate incident, some bad "designer heroin" got loose and caused users to develop what appeared to be incredibly fast-onset late stage Parkinson's. Nasty bit of business, but a boon for researchers. More info here. Sad case, but interesting.
http://classes.uleth.ca/200901/chem2600a/Designer%20Drugs%20PPT.pdf
...no two people are not on fire.
It's not just the exercise.
The great thing about today's video games are the reward schedules that make games so damn addictive. These rewards cause dopamine release, which helps offset Parkinson's.
What I wonder is if there's a "Flowers for Algernon" type effect -- like with Levadopa, is tolerance built up quickly? Do patients doing Wii-hab for Parkinson's need to take a "Wii holiday" the same way Parkinson's patients on Levadopa need to take a drug holiday to reset their tolerance?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
No need to make exercise fun. Exercise is like sex, when you're doing it your body is spewing dopamine, endorphins, and bodily fluids in all directions. If you're doing it right, it feels great.
Pheh. For some people. Generally, endorphins, the thing that actually gives you the high, doesn't get going until you're a long way into the exercise regimine and even then it usually doesn't counteract the pain and tedium of plain-ol weight lifting, running, or whatever other boring thing.
I've done em all, regularly for years even, and well I just never saw this "no need to make exercise fun" thing. My friend who was heavily into running and marathons and such, once said when I asked him about runner's high. "That's a bunch of crap," he said, and you only feel it when you've been running for miles anyway. Which is not something Parkinson's sufferers are going to do.
So yeah. "Exercise" by itself is boring as hell and praying for an endorphine high as payoff isn't going to work for a lot of people. Fun things that also happen to be exercise are fun. I like rock climbing. That gets me going. For others, Wii Sports or Wii Fit might be what they need.
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