A World of Wii Warm Ups

January 17th, 2008 Posted in News

The Nintendo Wii can be seen as the true next generation in gaming. While its rivals Microsoft and Sony have focussed upon producing high power machines Nintendo have produced a gaming system that uses a revolutionary control system. This control system intuitively detects movement and then relays this information into the game; it has been popular with gamers from a wide variety of generations while its family orientated approach seems to have paid off.

A recent report has stated that the Wii is now being used by medical surgeons to ‘warm up’ before surgery. Games that require delicate movements are believed to be ideal for honing scalpel skills before scrubbing up. Selected trainee surgeons have been spending an hour using the Wii before undertaking a dedicated virtual reality operation. It is believed that the trainees who warmed up with the Wii scored 50% more for their tool handling skills than those who did not.  

The Wii controller contains cutting edge technologies to detect these sensitive movements; an accelerometer is used to measure motion while a gyrometer measures the tilt. The accurate measurement of these two aspects of motion is vital to the Wii’s intuitive control system. Added to the motion sensors, the Wii also uses infrared and Bluetooth technology with a sensor bar to send information directly to the Wii console. The combining of these technologies has enabled developers to create games that require physical movement and at times, great accuracy.

Not all games however are believed to improve surgery skills; a researcher discounted the benefits of swinging an imaginary tennis racket before surgery.  It is believed that games requiring delicate movements were ideal to warm up the surgeons. As a result software is now being designed for the Wii that will accurately recreate surgical procedures. It is not only believed that will be useful to warm surgeons up but with the relatively low cost of the Wii system in comparison to dedicated surgery training tools, it could present a valuable resource for training surgeons in the developing world.