Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
If you need any further proof that video games can be addictive, consider this: a 29-year-old California man has reportedly ruptured a tendon in his thumb and will require surgery after he injured himself by binge-playing the mobile game Candy Crush Saga.
According to BBC News reports, the man had been playing the game constantly for at least six weeks, and in addition to illustrating how easy it can be for people to get hooked on a particular piece of software, the case is interesting because the man did not know he was hurt.
Smartphone games can double as pain killers
Typically, a torn tendon is an extremely painful experience, the British news organization points out, but the Candy Crush addict did not notice that the injury had happened until after he stopped playing. Only then did he report experiencing “chronic pain” and seek medical treatment.
The doctors who treated him told Live Science earlier this week that the injury, which happened in the left thumb of the right-handed gamer, appears to show that video games could have a pain-killing effect and may help explain why people play to the point where it harms their health.
“We need to be aware that certain video games can act like digital painkillers,” explained Dr. Andrew Doan, co-author of a case study published in this week in the JAMA Internal Medicine and head of addictions research at the Naval Medical Center San Diego Department of Mental Health. “We have to be very cognizant that that can be abused.”
The report claims that the incident indicates that video games can interfere with how and when we experience pain, particularly when he play them excessively. The authors recommend future research that investigates whether or not this pain reduction is one of the reasons why some men and women play can injure themselves by playing repeatedly.
Here’s what happens when you game non-stop
As for the man himself, the JAMA Internal Medicine paper said that he reported experiencing chronic left thumb pain and loss of active motion after playing the popular Match-3 puzzle game on his mobile device all day for six to eight weeks. He had been playing the game with his left hand while using his right one to complete other tasks, according to Live Science.
“On physical examination, the left extensor pollicis longus tendon was not palpable, and no tendon motion was noted with wrist tenodesis,” Dr. Doan and his colleagues wrote. “The thumb metacarpophalangeal range of motion was 10° to 80°, and thumb interphalangeal range of motion was 30° to 70°.”
“The clinical diagnosis was rupture of the left extensor pollicis longus tendon,” they added in the case study. “The patient subsequently underwent an extensor indicis proprius (1 of 2 tendons that extend the index finger) to extensor pollicis longus tendon transfer. During surgery, rupture of the extensor pollicis longus tendon was seen between the metacarpophalangeal and wrist joints.”
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