Assessing the effects of manual dexterity and playing computer games on catheter–wire manipulation for inexperienced operators. Issue 9 (September 2017) - Alsafi, Z.
Abstract : Aim: To investigate the effect of playing computer games and manual dexterity on catheter–wire manipulation in a mechanical aortic model. Material and methods: Medical student volunteers filled in a preprocedure questionnaire assessing their exposure to computer games. Their manual dexterity was measured using a smartphone game. They were then shown a video clip demonstrating renal artery cannulation and were asked to reproduce this. All attempts were timed. Two-tailed Student's t -test was used to compare continuous data, while Fisher's exact test was used for categorical data. Results: Fifty students aged 18–22 years took part in the study. Forty-six completed the task at an average of 168 seconds (range 103–301 seconds). There was no significant difference in the dexterity score or time to cannulate the renal artery between male and female students. Students who played computer games for >10 hours per week had better dexterity scores than those who did not play computer games: 9.1 versus 10.2 seconds ( p =0.0237). Four of 19 students who did not play computer games failed to complete the task, while all of those who played computer games regularly completed the task ( p =0.0168). Conclusion: Playing computer games is associated with better manual dexterity and ability to complete a basic interventional radiology task for novices. Highlights: Playing computer games for more than 5 hours per week is associated with better manual dexterity. Playing computer games is associated with better performance in basic IR tasks. Playing computer games for less than two hours per week does not correlate with better manual dexterity.