MINNEAPOLIS, April 9, 2008—An MRI body scan conducted recently at the Mayo Clinic confirmed that a 22-year-old man with an aching shoulder suffered from playing the bowling module for the Nintendo virtual reality game Wii.

News of this diagnosis appeared in a report in Register Hardware, derived from the online journal Skeletal Radiology. Mayo Clinic confirmed the report to the MMA.

According to the article, three doctors confirmed “diffuse areas of increased intramuscular T2 signal intensity”, which they diagnosed as a symptom of "Wiiitus," the term they gave the new condition.

Wii is a game platform that requires physical pantomiming of athletic movements. Gamers have already complained of aching wrists, arms, backs and shoulders. But the Register Hardware article is the first instance of anyone formally diagnosed with a Wii-based condition.

The report says that that the game system's lightweight controllers don’t offer much resistance to the “aggressive maneuvers made by the participant.” This lack of push-back leads sometimes to “awkward deceleration forces being applied to the upper extremity.”

It’s this deceleration process that the doctors believe causes strain on gamers’ muscle groups, resulting in sprains – or worse.

Nintendo in its materials warns players not to play on the Wii for lengthy periods of time.

Register Hardware article