New York Tech Center for Esports Medicine Announces Research Collaboration with GE Healthcare

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Newswise — New York Institute of Technology Esports Medicine Center This day announced a research collaboration with GE Health care which will seek to analyze the lean body mass of competitive esports athletes and help establish the sport’s first body composition benchmarks.

While sport-specific body composition benchmarks have been developed for traditional athletes, they have yet to be established for competitive players, who practice up to 10 hours per day and perform more than 600 action movements per minute. These repetitive, isolated movements of the forearm and upper arm can set the stage for career-ending overuse injuries, particularly to the hand and wrist. In fact, the average retirement age for professional players is only 26 years old..

Identifying and treating early changes in body composition, such as loss of muscle mass, can improve performance and prevent long-term injury. While higher percentages of lean body mass often equate to greater strength and agility, lower percentages tend to signify muscle weakness, a common precursor to musculoskeletal damage.

To analyze and help establish the necessary body composition benchmarks, the New York Tech Center for Esports Medicine will leverage GE Healthcare’s Lunar iDXA device with enCORE v18 software to perform total body analysis of players’ fat, muscle, and bone, as well as in-depth analysis of regions of interest, including forearms. Researchers at the Center will then use the collected data to propose sport-wide body composition benchmarks and respective injury prevention guidelines. Study participants will include 30 college-age competitive players and a control group of 30 non-players (controlling for age, gender, and body mass index).

“Our previous findings showed that gamers who played more than four hours a day had lower lean body mass and higher body fat count than non-gamers of the same age and body mass index. Our goal now is to analyze a region prone to gaming overuse injuries and propose benchmarks and interventions that could allow players to avoid or at least delay the development of chronic injuries that could shorten their careers.” said the lead researcher Joanne Donoghue, Ph.D., associate professor and director of clinical research at New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYITCOM).

The research results could also have broader applications. For example, esports body composition benchmarks could help inform injury prevention standards for populations with similar occupational hazards, including military drone operators, who are also at risk of overuse injuries. of hands and wrists.

“We are excited to collaborate with the New York Institute of Technology for a better understanding of the body composition of the esport athlete,” said Claudio Mejía, leader of the lunar segment of GE Health care. “Our DXA devices are used by sports teams around the world to analyze lean and fat mass. We anticipate that this research will provide valuable information for esports athletes as they continue to set standards for this new and evolving sport while helping their athletes avoid injury.”

Other New York Institute of Technology researchers involved in this study include medical director Hallie Zwibel, DO, NYITCOM Associate Dean for Research Kurt Amsler, Ph.D., Y Exercise Science, B.S. Instructor and Coordinator Alexander Rothstein, M.S.

About the New York Institute of Technology

New York Institute of Technology’s six schools and colleges offer undergraduate, graduate, and professional degree programs in in-demand disciplines, including computer science, data science, and cybersecurity; biology, health professions and medicine; architecture and design; engineering; IT and digital technologies; management; and energy and sustainability. An independent, private, non-sectarian, non-profit institute of higher education founded in 1955, it welcomes nearly 8,000 students worldwide. The university has campuses in New York City and Long Island, New York; Jonesboro, Arkansas; and Vancouver, British Columbia, as well as programs around the world. More than 112,000 alumni are part of a committed network of physicians, architects, scientists, engineers, business leaders, digital artists, and healthcare professionals. Together, the university’s community of makers, creators, healers, and innovators empower graduates to change the world, solve the challenges of the 21st century, and reinvent the future. For more information, visit nyit.edu.

About GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare is the $17.7 billion healthcare business of GE (NYSE: GE). As the world’s leading innovator of medical technology, pharmaceutical diagnostics and digital solutions, GE Healthcare enables clinicians to make faster, more informed decisions through smart devices, data analytics, applications and services, underpinned by its Edison intelligence platform. With more than 100 years of experience in the healthcare industry and around 48,000 employees worldwide, the company operates at the center of an ecosystem working towards precision healthcare, digitizing healthcare, helping drive the productivity and improve outcomes for patients, providers, health systems and researchers around the world. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Insights for the latest news or visit our website www.gehealthcare.com for more information.

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