EA Sports Active, exclusively for Nintendo Wii, was designed, with a group of fitness experts, to create a fun and easy to follow workout routine. The wii controlled tracks your movements, both upper and lower body, and enables you to view them on your television screen. It is an excellent tool for someone that is looking to get into shape, but uncomfortable with going into gyms and fitness centers.

There are various twenty minute routine, in EA Sports Active, and each day you will be challenged with a routine different from the last. EA Sports Active also provides you with a virtual trainer, for that needed motivation. All routine focus on upper and lower body fitness, however there are options for cardio, if that is what you would prefer.

Throughout your routine the intensity increases and the workout becomes more and more difficult. During the workout your personal trainer provides feedback to help keep you on track and guide you through your routine. You can set up custom routines and exercises that focus on specific parts of the body, and the game also keeps track of your progress and results. You are also able to see the calories you are burning in real time, which can provide a great deal of additional motivation.

It is easy to achieve your personal fitness goals, and have fun at the same time, while you are utilizing EA Sports Wii. The exercises are fun, and you can also utilize them to work out with friends and family, if you choose. When you are working out with someone else, you will have a split screen tracking both of your progress, and you are competing with each other. This feature usually leads to a more intense work, and a fun time.

Getting exercise from the comfort of you own living room has never been easier than it is with EA Sports Active for the Nintendo Wii. Using the motion sensing technology of the Wii’s controls the game is able to sense your movements, and a personal trainer provides helpful feedback and encouragement throughout your routine. The difficultly and intensity of your workout is based upon your personal level of fitness, making the game an excellent exercise option for anyone regardless of their current level of physical fitness. EA Sports Active can be purchased wherever video games are sold.

*Developing empathy in young people
* Post-traumatic stress therapy
* Pain distraction
* Physical rehab
* Visual acuity
* Hand-eye coordination
* Simulating real experiences
* Problem-solving
* Sparking imagination
* Cognitive health
* Understanding how others think
* Social connections
* Tech advancements
* Exer-gaming
* Fun

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Nintendo Wii Fit boom in sales goes someway to prove that nations are really serious about getting thier bodies and minds into shape. With backing from Barack Obama himself, with his pledge to spend $50 Billion over the next five years on health IT. More and more people are getting thier health advice, councel and vital information online. This is very exciting news, make way for IT at its best! Read on for exciting news!…

‘Health 2.0′ Could Prove Worth The Bill

The Obama Administration Could Apply New Technologies To Reform Health Care — If They Focus On The Essentials

by Mary Gilbert, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009

When a busy working mother gets home, she can walk into the living room and play a game of tennis or attend a yoga class using a popular video game system. The “Personal Trainer: Cooking” game on her Nintendo DS will guide her through preparing a healthy dinner. And before she goes to bed, she can flip open her laptop, go online and refill a prescription to pick up at the pharmacy in the morning.

It’s a basic routine for the millions of Americans who have embraced technology to help them improve their health. Nintendo’s Wii Fit video game sold 3.53 million copies from its March 2008 launch through November, according to the company. And according to a study by Harris Interactive, 150 million Americans looked up health-related information online last year, 81 percent of those who regularly use the Internet. The Pew Research Center found in 2006 that, of those who turned to the Web for help, most of them gave consideration to the information they found online in deciding how to take care of themselves or someone else.

“Increasingly, people are getting their health information from blogs, from social networks, from virtual worlds, from Twittering, from mobile applications and this whole sphere,” said Janice Nall, director of the Division of e-Health Marketing for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The government has generally been slower than those it serves in embracing health IT, but there are signs of change. President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to spend $50 billion over the next five years on health IT, a commitment that experts applaud. Those in the health care community, however, are advising the transition team to approach any e-health initiative narrowly and methodically. Most agree that there are two areas where the government has a role to play: adoption and interoperability.

Digitizing the health care system, most experts agree, would save money, eliminate waste and empower patients by giving them easier access to their records. But progress toward getting providers on board has been remarkably slow. One of the greatest barriers has been the expense of installing the hardware and software and training employees to use it. With the average system’s cost ranging from about $25,000 to $45,000, plus annual maintenance fees of $3,000 to $9,000, providers — particularly small practices — have been reluctant to make the up-front investment, especially in a crumbling economy. Janet Marchibroda, chief executive officer of the eHealth Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to improving health care through information technology, said that one thing the administration can do is “provide federal funding support through a combination of grants, loans, increased Medicare payments and tax incentives to providers” who adopt new health IT systems.

Getting doctors’ offices and hospitals wired is a critical first step. But a report released this week by Booz Allen Hamilton and the Federation of American Hospitals finds that electronic medical records alone won’t necessarily cut costs or improve care unless that information can also be shared easily. Karen Davenport, director of health policy at the Center for American Progress, argues that “building the information exchange — the interoperability pipes and plumbing” — is a task ideally suited for government because “it’s really a public good.” While it’s not necessarily in the business interest of any given segment of the health care system, “it’s in the systemic interest to have that exchange. So there’s really appropriately a public role in pulling that together.”

The investment of public funds would likely be a tough sell in the current economy, but if the administration could successfully drive this two-pronged approach, the repercussions would be huge. Rogers says that, depending on which study you read, projected cost savings of implementing e-health range between $20 billion and $1 trillion.

The potential benefits of health IT go far beyond the pocketbook, however, as demonstrated by those individuals already using “Health 2.0″ technology. “We know that being healthy isn’t just going to the doctor to get treated when you’re sick and that most of the things that you can do to be healthy are things that you as an individual can do,” Nall said. “You’re going to have better health if it’s incorporated” into daily life, Nall points out, and technology is becoming a larger and larger part of everyone’s daily routine.

Nall has led the CDC’s effort over the last several years to branch out into new social media in an effort to improve public health. The agency started small, posting podcasts on its Web site, but it has since expanded efforts to include campaigns in virtual worlds like Whyville and Second Life, partnerships with social networking sites like MySpace, and a dedicated channel on YouTube. In one text messaging campaign, the CDC partnered with the Kaiser Foundation to disseminate information about HIV testing in conjunction with World Aids Day. By texting in their ZIP code, people could receive the addresses of testing centers near them.

But Nall recognizes that those who go online in search of health information are often getting it from their peers rather than experts. On sites such as DailyStrength.org, for example, patients and caregivers can read about others’ experiences with disease and treatments, while other sites serve more specific populations. Grouploop.org offers a forum for teens with cancer and their families, allowing them to participate in weekly support groups moderated by a professional or find others who share their diagnosis or live in there area. Disaboom prides itself as an “online community for people with disabilities and those whose lives they touch”; diabetics can link up on DiabetesConnect.

The challenge from a government perspective is maintaining quality control. “We need to be out in that outer circle of where people are getting health information and be there to make sure they’re getting accurate information,” Nall says.

Still, Rogers said, “I think everybody agrees that patients have to be more involved in their own health care. I don’t think there’s a doctor in the country that doesn’t think that’s a good idea.”

Crestview gets a bit of Wii-Habilitation

by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · December 17, 2008

She said Wii’s wand is easier to hold than other movement-oriented game controls.

If you like the exercise, then it doesn’t seem so much like exercise, does it? That applies to the body and the mind, so a group of West Branch Middle School pupils took a game they like over to Crestview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center to let senior citizens give it a try.

Do they like it?

“Yes, if my memory would stay with me,” Liz Tuttle told the pupils after her turn at a memory game. “It’s really easy to lose concentration.”

Seventh-graders Ryan O’Neil, Kara Rex, Emily Corr and Rachel Lightstone – who make up the Wii-Habilitators team – are having so much success stretching the minds and muscles of residents that they are raising money to buy one and give it to Crestview.

In fact, things are moving so fast that one of the Crestview staff went and bought the game even before the team had raised all the money. But the money is coming in. The West Branch City Council donated $200 to the group on Monday, adding to the $100 Wii-Habilitators have collected already.

The $300 will purchase the console, but the group is still raising money to purchase different games – which run from $39 to $49 – to challenge the nursing home residents.

Bowling and “Fast Focus” are helping residents move their arms and sharpen their minds, Rex said.

In the bowling game, for example, the team records the number of pins knocked down. In Fast Focus, players see a character’s face for only a few seconds and have to choose from a selection which face they saw. In both, the team records the player’s score.

“At the end, we’ll put the information together and see if it improved their memory, hand-eye coordination and interaction with other residents,” Rex said.

Rex and Corr volunteer their time at Crestview.

“We wanted to help the citizens,” Rex said.

In the bowling game, the pupils found that residents had “a lot of false starts.”

“Some didn’t release the button on time,” Rex said.

Sandy Hatfield, who organizes activities to keep residents moving, said she has learned that many of them grew up with bowling or joined leagues.

“They really enjoy it a lot,” she said.

That encouraged the Wii-Habilitators.

“It’s nice to find something that handicapped people can do that they used to do,” Corr said.

Hatfield said Crestview residents have half-hour exercise programs on week days to work on range-of-motion activities. With balloon volleyball, some residents are raising their arms only up so far. But with Wii bowling, they “forget they are exercising.”

“Their arms go up much farther,” she said, saying the motivation and competition pushes them to try harder.

Rex said the residents want to keep playing.

“Most have so much fun that a lot wanted to play two times,” she said.

Lightstone agreed.

“They seem pretty excited,” she said.

Hatfield said the residents also like to have the young visitors, which is a change from the “day to day.”

In this blog we will be taken on a journey through the Nintendo Wii World; From Wii workouts, Wii yoga, Wii sports and games through to practical applications of Wii fitness programs and the way that the Wii and Wii Fit benefits its users.

Not only will be be exploring all of the fun and games that are to be had by using the Nintendo Wii in the home with family and friends, we will also be discovering how health professionals have used the Wii gaming console in their customised patient treatment plans. I am sure that many doctors agree that the Nintendo Wii should be prescribed on the NHS!

Come with me on this exploration of how we can truly optimise our Nintendo Wii usage to benefit our mind and body in a profound way.

Come back soon!

Jodie