A 25-year-old woman suffered a stroke after playing a workout video game, doctors have revealed.
The anonymous woman from Japan had recently begun working out after being mostly sedentary, using the popular Nintendo Switch fitness game, Ring Fit Adventure.
The game, which she had played three times before without incident, uses a special ring-shaped controller that the person pushes and pulls while wearing a strap that goes around the leg to track the person’s movements.
During a session, she was performing intense, repetitive overhead pushing and pulling motions using the game’s resistance-based ring controller when she suddenly felt a sharp pain on the left side of her neck.
She brushed it off and continued her day. But just two days later, she was rushed to the hospital after the left side of her body went numb and her vision suddenly blurred.
Doctors wrote in a case study that the intense, repetitive overhead motions of the game placed extreme stress on a vulnerable artery in her neck, causing a small tear in its inner lining, called a vertebral artery dissection (VAD). THIS allowed blood to seep into the artery wall, forming a dangerous clot that narrowed the passageway.
Doctors said it then traveled up into her brain, eventually lodging in a vital blood vessel that feeds the vision center. This sudden blockage cut off oxygen, causing the stroke that resulted in her left-sided vision loss and numbness.
While they could not prove absolute certainty, doctors strongly believed the mechanical stress from the repetitive overhead motions in the game was the trigger, though they note ‘a definitive causal relationship… cannot be conclusively established.’
A 25-year-old woman had a stroke caused that doctors believe could be linked to intense, repetitive overhead pushing and pulling motions using a fitness game’s resistance-based ring controller (stock)
Fitness is a crucial component of maintaining a healthy weight, blood pressure, a measured appetite, good sleep hygiene and insulin sensitivity. But novices are URGED to speak with their doctors before embarking on a new fitness regimen, which could lead to injury.
Ischemic stroke, the condition the woman suffered, is brought on when a blood clot, known as a thrombus, blocks an artery bringing blood to the brain, preventing it from getting oxygen and nutrients.
Brain cells begin to die within minutes.
The clot that caused the major problem in the woman’s brain formed because of a tear in the left vertebral artery in her neck
That clot then broke free, traveled up into her brain, and got stuck in an artery on the right side, which is what caused the stroke.
The tear in the woman’s artery, known as vertebral artery dissection (VAD), affects approximately one to 1.5 Americans per 100,000 people annually.
It is a leading cause of stroke, particularly in young adults, and its total incidence is growing due to increased use of advanced imaging techniques like CT angiography (CTA) and magnetic resonance angiography (MRA).
VAD can happen in two main ways. Sometimes it occurs spontaneously, meaning it happens without any obvious or major cause. Other times, it is triggered by some form of trauma or intense physical stress to the neck.
The stroke affected the woman’s right side, but the numbness and vision loss were on her left side. The brain is cross-wired and the right side of the brain controls feeling and movement on the left side of the body, and vice versa.
Doctors discovered she had suffered a stroke. Panel A arrows point to bright white spots on the brain scan (the MRI) showing the acute ischemic stroke in the right occipital lobe. Panel B upper arrows point to a missing section of the normally visible, smooth line of the right posterior cerebral artery, indicating the blockage that caused the stroke. Lower arrows are pointing to the left vertebral artery in the neck, which appears faint or broken
Scan A shows that the left vertebral artery, the key artery in the neck that feeds the brain, looks faint and thin, suggesting that blood flow through that artery is restricted. Scan B reveals the definitive sign of the problem, a crescent-shaped blood clot that has formed inside the wall of the artery itself
In addition to losing the left half of her vision in both eyes, she had lost sensation on the entire left side of her body.
Doctors performed a thrombectomy, in which they threaded a thin tube through an artery in her groin all the way up to the clot in her brain, according to the American Journal of Case Reports.
Using a special device, they grabbed the clot and pulled it out to instantly restore blood flow.
This is a highly effective treatment for major strokes.
Doctors also delivered a clot-busting drug directly to the site of the blockage through the same catheter to dissolve any remaining fragments, a treatment called intra-arterial thrombolysis.
After the thrombectomy, her symptoms improved dramatically within a day. The numbness resolved, and her severe vision loss improved significantly. She was discharged from the hospital after 14 days.
At her 18-month follow-up, doctors saw that the visual issue had further improved to only a very a small blind spot in her upper left visual field. All other neurological symptoms, like the numbness, had completely resolved.
Strokes affect around 795,000 Americans every year, including first-time strokes and recurrent strokes.
While using the game’s resistance band for overhead exercises, the sedentary woman suddenly experienced a sharp pain in her neck
The above graph shows the age-adjusted death rate for stroke across the US by region. Between 2001 and the early 2010s, stroke death rates fell significantly across all regions, but progress reversed after 2014, with rates rising everywhere through 2021. Despite this recent increase, death rates in 2021 were still lower than they were in 2001
The effects can be devastating, causing permanent paralysis, speech difficulties, vision loss, long-term disability, affecting a person’s ability to move, speak, and think independently.
A stroke can also lead to permanent weakness on one side of the body, problems with communication, and changes in cognitive function and emotion and death.
Approximately 162,639 Americans die from strokes annually, according to the CDC.
Treating them early is crucial because brain cells are dying every minute blood flow is blocked.
The goal is to restore that blood flow as quickly as possible to save as much brain tissue as can be saved.
Quick treatment can mean the difference between a full recovery and permanent, life-altering disabilities.
Nintendo has not responded to Daily Mail’s request for comment.
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