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[Its Me]

 

DES MOINES, Iowa -- A central Iowa mother woke up over the weekend to find her daughter having a seizure.

 

After a trip to the emergency room, a family learned that the cause was most likely from playing video games too long, Des Moines television station KCCI reported.

 

Doctors said such incidents are not common, but they do happen. Certain people are prone to it because of the way their brains work. Once was enough for 14-year-old Amy Kopaska.

 

She loves to play video games, the station reported. She spent five hours straight playing a video game over the weekend. Her marathon session led to a frightening situation.

 

 

"This has never happened before. Boy, it scared the life out of me," said Janell Hansen, Kopaska's mother.

 

Hansen woke up early Sunday and heard an awful noise from her daughter's room. She found her daughter thrashing on her bed.

 

"I rolled her over. Her eyes were dilated. She was foaming at the mouth, gasping for air. Just breathing very hard," Hansen said.

 

Hansen said that at one point it appeared her daughter had quit breathing all together.

 

"Then it was quiet. She didn't move. I thought I was watching her die. It scared me terribly," Hansen said.

 

Hansen gave Kopaska a couple of big breaths as she waited for the paramedics. At the hospital, after several tests and questions, the conclusion was that the long-term use of the video game induced the seizure.

 

"The pattern of the lights sets up an abnormal reaction in the brain, and that causes the seizure to happen," said Dr. Joel Waymire, a pediatrician.

 

Kopaska doesn't remember anything about the seizure.

 

"My mind is a blank, like dreaming without the dream," she said.

 

Kopaska was playing the game called "True Crime: New York City." There's a car driving through snow and the snowflakes act as a strobe light.

 

Kopaska's brother played, too, but he took a break when it was her turn. She stayed and watched him play.

 

Kopaska now only plays one to two hours at a time and then takes a break.

 

 

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/technology/5500521/detail.html

 

 

Now limits her to a couple hours at a time. WOW! Now that's parenting.

 

[SemperParatus]

Very depressing.

[evmori]

WOW! Only a couple of hours at a time! Yeah that'll solve the problem. Guess they don't need to talk to their kids. Stick them in front of the tube & close the door! Parents like these should be taken out back!

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

A blessed Christmas to all

[fgoodwin]

I went camping last weekend with my son's troop; we got a polar bear patch because the temp got down to 24F on Saturday nite / Sunday morning.

 

When I asked my son and the other boys if they enjoyed the campout, they all said yes, despite the cold weather.

 

But on the 2-hour drive back home from Enchanted Rock, all they could talk about were video games, the new Xbox, which games they wanted for Christmas, etc.

 

I don't think my son is as addicted as the girl in the story, but I certainly plan to share this story with him.

[Eamonn]

Have to admit to not being into video games.

When Space Invaders came out about 100 years ago the Scouts in the Troop back home used to always win when we played.

Over the years I have bought the new games and new game systems for OJ. I liked the Game Boy, but he used to moan that I was running his batteries down.

He has the PS2 but doesn't have that many games. In part because I don't really understand them and I'm not keen on anything where people are shown being shot, blown up or where they have their heads chopped off.

On the rare occasion when he does have a extra dollar he goes and buys pre-played games. Some are really cheap.

He does enjoy them, but isn't home that much to play them.

If they can come up with a game that you can play and IM your pals at the same time, I think they will be on to something.

Two hours a day? I don't think he has ever sat and done any thing for 2 hours -Not even his home work!!

Eamonn.

[Prairie_Scouter]

Ah, a conversation near and dear to my heart. Unfortunately, not a topic I have a good solution to.

 

First, video games didn't cause the girl's seisure. It was the strobe effect that was included in the game. Other similar lighting sources could have caused the same thing.

 

My boys like to play video games as well. When discussion has come up in the family over what is an appropriate amount of time to play, I try really hard to look at both sides. These are straight "A" students. They're not wallflowers; they have good social skills. So, I have to ask myself, would I be as worried about this if they wanted to play baseball all day?

 

High school football players practice for hours each day. Anyone really dedicated to their activity will spend a lot of time at it. I'll sit and read for hours (well, I would if I wasn't spending most of my time on that "hour a week" I spend on Scouting ). I'll work on photography for hours at a time. I'll go to a movie and have entertainment fed to me for a couple of hours at a time.

 

So, I don't really know the answer to all this. I don't think that video games are some sort of universal evil. Some kids are prone to problems, and these might be aggravated by too much video gaming. They might have the same problems by constantly watching the violence on the nightly news.

 

I don't know that we should take this one incident and conclude that these are bad parents, either.

 

 

[fgoodwin]

P_S, I agree with your overall assessment that video games, in and of themselves, are not a universal evil. I think the bigger issue is one of physical activity vs. inactivity.

 

Schools are increasingly crowding out PE and recess in order to add "fluff", to the detriment of our childrens' health.

 

One reason I have my son in Scouting is so he doesn't lose touch with the outdoors. He's loved camping ever since he was a Tiger -- I want him to keep feeling that way.

 

But he can and will spend all weekend indoors playing video games or watching cartoons on TV if we as parents let him. Instead, I make sure he's outside with me, mowing the lawn, or picking up after the dogs, or just being on his bike, riding up and down in the neighborhood with his buddies.

 

We didn't have video games when we were kids, but we had different time sinks that kept us from being outdoors all the same: pin ball comes to mind, although I wasn't a big pin-ball fan; same for foos-ball (remember that?).

 

So, while I can't be too hard on today's younger generation, lest I sound a hypocrite, I certainly will do my part to make sure my son stays physically active in the outdoors and not tied to a CRT screen.

[msnowman]

As a long time gamer myself I will say that anything, in the extreme can be bad. I have pulled marathon 12 hour stints in front of my computer playing a popular MMPORPG (though I still took occassional bio breaks for me and to tend to my beagle Hank). There are gamers who let their addiction rule their lives and have paid the ultimate price (death)...but then that isn't much different from the smokers who sneak smokes on camping trips or huddle together in that smoked filled hut that our local Scout Camp has designated for such addicted people. Many will smoke until it ends their lives (Nephew's paternal grandmother died of lung cancer last March, my own died 9 years ago tomorrow).

 

I've been gaming since Pong (remember that?) first came out. I bought a PS2 during my summer vacation because my better half had a broken foot and couldn't go very far. Nephew and I frequently game together. We also frequently talk, shop, scout, movie and hang up together.

 

That said, lets not forget that video games are not the source of all evil and the cause of all of our children's problems. Everything in moderation...Alcohol, food, tobacco, sex, video games....too much of any of them can cause physically, psychological or personal loss.

 

IMHO

YiS

Michelle