Legal Niches

UK Boy's Eyesight Saved By Mario Kart

By james_fudge

At the age of 4 Ben Michaels was diagnosed with amblyopia, commonly known as "lazy eye syndrome." The condition caused the vision in his right eye to gradually decrease over time. If it had gone untreated, Ben would have completely lost the vision in his right eye. But a clever doctor came up with a unique therapy to help Ben strengthen the vision in his right eye gradually over time using a Nintendo DS, Mario Kart and an eye patch. That therapy saw Ben's vision in his right eye go from "near blindness" to an improvement of "250 percent."

So how did this therapy work? Ken Nischal, a consultant at Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in London, told Ben to play videogames every day while covering his left eye (the good eye) with a patch. Ben played Mario Kart on his DS for two hours a day with his twin brother and, after only a week of using this method, Ben's vision in his right eye improved dramatically. Read More

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Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on June 25, 2010 (boomark / email).