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Managing the health of the eSport athlete: an integrated health management model

OBJECTIVES: eSport is a form of electronic gaming, also known as professional or competitive video gaming, and is growing at a rapid pace worldwide. Over 50 US colleges have established varsity gaming teams over the past three years; some colleges offer eSport scholarships as they do for traditional...

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Autores principales: DiFrancisco-Donoghue, Joanne, Balentine, Jerry, Schmidt, Gordon, Zwibel, Hallie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6350739/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30792883
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2018-000467
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author DiFrancisco-Donoghue, Joanne
Balentine, Jerry
Schmidt, Gordon
Zwibel, Hallie
author_facet DiFrancisco-Donoghue, Joanne
Balentine, Jerry
Schmidt, Gordon
Zwibel, Hallie
author_sort DiFrancisco-Donoghue, Joanne
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVES: eSport is a form of electronic gaming, also known as professional or competitive video gaming, and is growing at a rapid pace worldwide. Over 50 US colleges have established varsity gaming teams over the past three years; some colleges offer eSport scholarships as they do for traditional sports. There is little objective research on the health habits of these players who are often placed under the direction of the athletics department on college campuses, and there is currently no health management model on how to treat these new athletes. METHODS: Anonymous electronic surveys were sent to 65 collegiate eSport players from nine universities across the USA and Canada inquiring about gaming and lifestyle habits, and musculoskeletal complaints due to eSport competition. RESULTS: Players practiced between 3 and 10 hours per day. The most frequently reported complaint was eye fatigue (56%), followed by neck and back pain (42%). eSport athletes reported wrist pain (36%) and hand pain (32%). Forty per cent of participants do not participate in any form of physical exercise. Among the players surveyed, only 2% had sought medical attention. CONCLUSION: eSport players, just like athletes in traditional sports, are susceptible to overuse injuries. The most common complaint was eye fatigue, followed by neck and back pain. This study shows eSport athletes are also prone to wrist and hand pain. This paper proposes a health management model that offers a comprehensive medical team approach to prevent and treat eSport athletes.
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spelling pubmed-63507392019-02-21 Managing the health of the eSport athlete: an integrated health management model DiFrancisco-Donoghue, Joanne Balentine, Jerry Schmidt, Gordon Zwibel, Hallie BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med Original Article OBJECTIVES: eSport is a form of electronic gaming, also known as professional or competitive video gaming, and is growing at a rapid pace worldwide. Over 50 US colleges have established varsity gaming teams over the past three years; some colleges offer eSport scholarships as they do for traditional sports. There is little objective research on the health habits of these players who are often placed under the direction of the athletics department on college campuses, and there is currently no health management model on how to treat these new athletes. METHODS: Anonymous electronic surveys were sent to 65 collegiate eSport players from nine universities across the USA and Canada inquiring about gaming and lifestyle habits, and musculoskeletal complaints due to eSport competition. RESULTS: Players practiced between 3 and 10 hours per day. The most frequently reported complaint was eye fatigue (56%), followed by neck and back pain (42%). eSport athletes reported wrist pain (36%) and hand pain (32%). Forty per cent of participants do not participate in any form of physical exercise. Among the players surveyed, only 2% had sought medical attention. CONCLUSION: eSport players, just like athletes in traditional sports, are susceptible to overuse injuries. The most common complaint was eye fatigue, followed by neck and back pain. This study shows eSport athletes are also prone to wrist and hand pain. This paper proposes a health management model that offers a comprehensive medical team approach to prevent and treat eSport athletes. BMJ Publishing Group 2019-01-10 /pmc/articles/PMC6350739/ /pubmed/30792883 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2018-000467 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2019. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
spellingShingle Original Article
DiFrancisco-Donoghue, Joanne
Balentine, Jerry
Schmidt, Gordon
Zwibel, Hallie
Managing the health of the eSport athlete: an integrated health management model
title Managing the health of the eSport athlete: an integrated health management model
title_full Managing the health of the eSport athlete: an integrated health management model
title_fullStr Managing the health of the eSport athlete: an integrated health management model
title_full_unstemmed Managing the health of the eSport athlete: an integrated health management model
title_short Managing the health of the eSport athlete: an integrated health management model
title_sort managing the health of the esport athlete: an integrated health management model
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6350739/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30792883
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2018-000467
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