A critical appraisal of "Testing the feasibility and safety of the Nintendo Wii gaming console in orthopedic rehabilitation: a pilot randomized controlled study"

The Nintendo Wii is a gaming device, which requires the movement and skill of performing a task in reference to a visual field. It is mostly used for recreational gaming, but recently in the field of physical therapy, has seen its role increase in demand. This critical appraisal was done as a research topic to study and compare standard physical therapy against Nintendo Wii virtual gaming in ACL injured patients. The purpose of this study was to not only compare the two and show which yielded better results, but also to show that the Wii aspect of therapy would yield no hurtful or negative consequences when it came to therapy. There were 30 subjects in the study, 13 of which were part of the control group (standard physical therapy), the other 17 were a part of the experimental group (Wii Physical therapy). The subjects were tested on 3 different occasions, before their surgery, right after their surgery, and 4 weeks after the post-operation session. The results showed that even though there was a slight edge in scores for the Nintendo Wii therapy, the results were not conclusive enough to show that one was significantly better than the other. However, it is also reported in the study that the virtual physical therapy had a positive experience with the subjects. The article starts and concludes by showing that even though Nintendo Wii gaming is a new aspect of orthopedic rehabilitation, the ground is laid for the advancement of future similar studies, practices, and techniques to come.