WII CAN DO IT

At 6-foot-1 and 260 pounds, Isaiah Ross doesn't look like the yoga type.

But scrutinizing a TV screen and mimicking limb-twisting positions with names such as "half moon" and "standing knee," the Terrapin football team defensive lineman said he pulled off the role with relative ease.

"It was no problem," he said.

While many athletes may hardly consider the Wii Fit exercise, this university's athletics department, along with Ohio State's, has taken the video game and turned it into a concussion and injury rehabilitation tool through its yoga and balance-testing features.

This season, athletes were required leave one sweltering practice session to play Wii Fit instead. Trainers tallied their scores for yoga and the table tilt balance game, in which the player stands on a board and adjusts his weight to roll on-screen marbles into designated holes. If athletes score well, it's an indicator of good balance. Those scores are kept as baseline references for each athlete throughout the season.

If an athlete gets injured, he will play the balancing game during rehabilitation so a trainer can note any changes in score. Once the athlete's balance is normalized and other cognitive tests are assessed, he may be cleared to play. Program participants include athletes on the football, lacrosse, soccer, competitive cheer and basketball teams.

For rehab purposes, athletes play a Wii Fit sport that may be outside their realm of expertise, such as snowboarding, ski jumping or an outdoor adventure game. Darryl Conway, assistant athletics director of sports medicine, said while results have been good so far, it is too soon to determine how successful the Wii Fit is as a measure of concussion recovery.

"Some people just see the Wii as a video game and not necessarily a tool," he said.

Still, it has advantages that are hard to ignore, said John Bush, assistant to the athletics director and a kinesiology professor.

"The best thing about it is it's sort of less boring than just lifting weights," he said. "They're just different games that are using the same muscles you'd normally use for rehab, but just a little more fun for athletes."

But being entertaining is just one of many assets the Wii Fit provides, Conway said. The program is easy to obtain. It's a cheaper option than $40,000 to $50,000 force plates, which require athletes to stand on a plate while a computer generates an algorithm revealing their balance. And it provides more objective results than the Balance Error Scoring Test, which is scored by a spotter as athletes stand on a foam pad and perform balance tests.

After receiving a concussion, men's soccer midfielder Kaoru Forbess found himself on the Wii Fit table tilt game. He said his numbers were slightly low, but he was fine after three or four days and was cleared for play.

"I don't think it's, like, the most accurate, but it kind of gives you an idea of the loss of balance of a concussion," he said.

In an April memo to all NCAA head athletic trainers, Debra Runkle, chairwoman of the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports, recognized the Wii Fit as a balance-testing method — one of three methods mentioned.

"If the NCAA is convinced it's a way to test, then it's been proven," Bush said.

But Conway said it's still a new concept with minimal research to support it. He noted that the medical community is very research-oriented, which accounts for why some may not be convinced of the program's validity.

For the past three years, the university's athletics department has been using a set of computerized tests that measure the brain's cognitive level before and after a concussion. For example, words may flash on the screen once and the athlete will later be asked to pick out those words within a different list.

Tamerah Hunt, director of research at the Ohio State Sports Concussion program, said the Wii Fit is essential addition to those methods.

"While we do not have adequate sample numbers and great data, this tool has proven that it is easily added into any institution with minimal costs and training to clinicians," she said.

Still, the decision to return to play cannot solely be based on the Wii Fit assessment, Conway said. Clinical evaluation and the traditional cognitive tests are also needed.

"If someone's Wii score is off, that doesn't mean we won't let them go back to play; it's part of the puzzle," he said. "It's just a tool in a tool belt."

roubein at umdbk dot com