Why should occupational therapists use wii games?

Think about the occupations you carry out in your daily lives? As individuals we find carrying out activities of daily living relatively easy and see these as automatic habits and routines. Imagine yourself in a stroke patients shoes. For them their whole world has been disrupted and they experience occupation dysfunction in their daily lives, as they are unable to carry out activities of daily living independently.

From my experience this is where occupational therapists play a vital role in identifying and treating stroke patients in rehabilitation. Occupational therapists working with patients are very occupation focused and outcome based setting achievable goals for patients. For occupational therapists using Wii games in practice there is always a purpose. This being to work on specific occupational performance tasks such as standing tolerance and hand function. However the social components are also important and getting patients interacting with other patients and staff. An experienced clinician (personal communication, June 5, 2013) justifies my point, that skills practiced through repetition would transfer to other activities of daily living performance components, and other meaningful activities as identified by the patient.

In my opinion there is significant relevance to busy occupational therapists using Wii games as an intervention tool for stroke patients. In reality due to occupational therapists caseloads and time constraints they don't have a lot of time allocated for each patient. Occupational therapists can choose the duration of how long patients play Wii games for and can either have group or individual sessions. 
I was fortunate to observe occupational therapists using the Wii games such as Ten Pin Bowling or Tennis, as a baseline and outcome measure, to grade patients progress alongside other functional assessments. Hilland, Murphy & Stratton, (2011) indicated that participating in Wii game interventions “boosted patients self esteem and confidence, which had an ongoing effect of being able to do more things independently”. I believe the above evidence stated by Hilland et al. (2011), as on placement I witnessed this that patients who had been playing Wii games could independently or with minimal assistance do functional upper limb movements in tasks. 

Occupational therapists work in collaboration with other health professionals and patients to help them progress towards achieving goals, reaching their full potential, to partake and engage in meaningful activities in their daily lives.

References

Hilland, T., Murphy, R., & Stratton, G. (2011). The feasibility and appropriateness of utilising the nintendo wii during stroke rehabilitation to promote physical activity. Retrieved from Liverpool John Moores University website: http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/sps/SPS_docs/Stroke_Rehab_final_report.pdf