Gaming injuries on the rise

CHILDREN as young as 12 may need physiotherapy because of injuries sustained through playing video games.

While gaming or eSports might not be a contact sport, it can cause conditions like trigger finger, gamers neck and even affect the eyes and ears.

Durban physiotherapist Sumeshen Moodley said people aged between 12-23 who spend considerable amounts of time gaming can end up with serious back problems.

“It alters your posture in the sense that the spine starts developing abnormally, you’re getting what we call malalignment, where the development of the curvature is going off centre or malaligned.

“In still-growing children, the growth plates have not completed fusing and conjoinment. As you approach your 20s, that’s when you sort of fully develop. In that development stage, if you’re not ensuring good biomechanics and posture, you obviously develop these abnormalities.”

As therapist to one of South Africa’s top professional gamers, Moodley is no stranger to the physical impact of gaming. He said there were various signs parents could watch out for to determine whether long periods of gaming were affecting their children.

“They start presenting with either the chin poke posture, or the curvature becomes exaggerated where they look a bit hunched. Sometimes you’ll notice that one shoulder is a bit more rounded than the other,” said Moodley.

He said gaming affected the neck and could lead to early degeneration and cervical spondylosis. In addition, by sitting for prolonged periods, back muscles became weak and inactive while they still needed to support the spine, leading to further complications.

Moodley said many of these conditions were also present in office workers who spent long hours hunched over a computer. This static posture reduced blood flow to the arms, creating weaknesses like carpal tunnel syndrome and trigger finger or trigger thumb.

“Trigger finger or trigger thumb is when there’s inflammation over the thumb joints or the finger joints, and that inflammation also causes a pressure on the nerves. So you get involuntary movement of the thumb, which can be painful. It’s like a trigger reaction because the fingers and the thumb are getting used to that constant movement of pressing down on a button.”

Over the past few years gaming addiction has led to the loss of several lives, mainly in South East Asia. The World Health Organization (WHO) recognises gaming disorder as an illness and it has been included in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). Worldwide, several deaths as a result of gaming disorder have been recorded and various articles document seizures, blood clots and obesity because of sedentary lifestyles, as well as sleeping disorders, dehydration and mental health issues as some of the problems that can occur as a result of excessive periods of gaming.

According to the WHO: “For gaming disorder to be diagnosed, the behaviour pattern must be severe enough that it results in significant impairment to a person’s functioning in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas, and would normally have been evident for at least 12 months.”

Emre Aksu, a spokesperson for online gaming site 1337 Games, said gamer neck, or nerd neck, where you lean your neck forward for long periods, could result in back and neck pain as well as poor posture. These can be mitigated by using a specialised ergonomic gaming chair with a straight, high back.

He also advised gamers to warm up and stretch their hands and wrists before playing games to prevent painful conditions.

“For PC gamers, elevating the wrists to be level with the keyboard and mouse will ensure that there is circulation throughout the wrist and hand to prevent the nerve from being trapped. A small, soft cushion can assist in elevation and make your wrist position more comfortable.

“For console gamers, opening and closing your hand repeatedly between sessions can be helpful, as can bending your wrist forward and backwards or side to side before rolling the wrist. These exercises will enable circulation to flow through the wrist and guarantee some movement for the median nerve,” said Aksu.

To counter eye strain, vision problems and headaches, he recommended taking regular breaks from gaming, while using blue light-filtering glasses or a blue light filter on computer or video console screens.

Hearing loss is another side effect of gaming because of the extended exposure to loud noise while playing. To prevent this, Aksu recommended the use of over-ear headphones rather than in-ear headphones because they prevent the sound from travelling directly to the ear canal, allowing more space for the sound to reverberate.

“They also typically have better noise cancellation features, which minimise ambient and external noises, meaning you don’t have to turn up the volume as loud,” he said.