Gaming sparks new skin disorder

24 February 2009 01:41pm

Experts have identified a new skin disorder caused by over-enthusiastic handling of gaming consoles.

The condition, given the name "PlayStation palmar hidradenitis", causes painful sore patches on the palms of the hands.

Doctors in Switzerland spotted the symptoms in a 12-year-old girl whose injuries had appeared over a period of four weeks and a medical team at Geneva University Hospital diagnosed "idiopathic eccrine hidradenitis" - a skin disorder that produces red, sore lumps on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet.

The word "idiopathic" means "of unknown cause". Usually the condition is seen on the feet of children taking part in vigorous physical activity, such as jogging, and it is thought to be linked to intense sweating.

At first, the doctors were puzzled as it is very unusual for the disorder to only affect the hands and the girl had not been taking part in any sport or physical exercise.

Then the girl's parents recalled that a few days days before the sores appeared, she had started using her PlayStation gaming console for several hours a day.

Even after suffering symptoms, she continued to use the console every day, though less intensively.

The doctors suspected that tight and continuous grasping of the console's hand-grips together with repeated pushing of the buttons had caused the injuries to the girl's hands. Sweating that can occur if a player becomes anxious about winning or losing a game would have made the problem worse.

Reporting the case in the British Journal of Dermatology, the Swiss authors said that stopping all console gaming for 10 days led to the girl making a full recovery.

A spokesman for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd, manufacturers of PlayStation, said: "We firmly believe that video gaming is a legitimate entertainment pastime. As with any leisure pursuit there are possible consequences of not following common sense, health advice and guidelines, as can be found within our instruction manuals."

© The Press Association