14 DAY TRIAL // Gaming has begun to play a bigger and bigger role in our daily life these days, but it seems that it has impacted our way of life so hard that doctors at the Geneva University Hospital in Switzerland have decided to name a skin disease in “honor” of Sony's PlayStation console brand.
That's right – while it may sound very weird at first, it seems that when doctors were confronted with a case of painful red lumps on the hands of a twelve-year-old girl, they weren't sure what to name the disease. While she was diagnosed with the idiopathic eccrine hidradenitis disorder, the fact that said disease only appeared on people who had endured heavy physical exercise, which the girl hadn't done, made them conjure up a new term called PlayStation palmar hidradenitis.
The reason behind this somewhat awkward decision is the fact that the little girl had only been playing on her PlayStation home console in the days before the disease manifested itself. The treatment however was pretty simple as the doctors prescribed reduced dosages of games per day and frequent breaks in order to prevent the palms from perspiring while clenching the controller of the console.
"The final diagnosis in our patient was idiopathic palmar eccrine hidradenitis," the researchers explained. "However, we propose that the variant in this patient can be labeled more specifically as 'PlayStation palmar hidradenitis'.” Following this case, the British Journal of Dermatology advises gamers that “If you're worried about soreness on your hands when playing a games console, it might be sensible to give your hands a break from time to time, and don't play excessively if your hands are prone to sweating.”
But don't think that this is the first gaming-related disease out there, as the Nintendo Wii has also caused some injuries, diagnosed by a few doctors as Acute Wiitis. Slowly but surely it seems that gaming is becoming a pretty dangerous pastime, but hopefully we'll all stay healthy and safe while we save the world yet again in our favorite games.