A 15-year-old Chinese boy simply identified as Xiaobin has become paralysed in his left hand and arm after binge-playing video games for a month and sleeping just two hours a night.
He was rushed to a hospital back in March after passing out in his home in the city of Nannning, DailyMail reports.
Like many other young students, the boy had been confined to his home since February due to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in China.
His parents told doctors that he had been spending most of his time in his room, under the pretext of taking online classes, but they later found out that he was spending his days and nights playing video games.
According to medical experts at Jiangbin Hospital, that was the main cause of the boy’s unusual stroke, which left him with a paralyzed arm and hand.
Xiaobin’s mother said;
He shut the windows and locked the door. We had no idea what he was doing in there. I saw his online conversation with friends. He said he was not well rested and was sleeping for at most two hours a day.
After collapsing in his home, Xiaobin was rushed to the hospital where a CT scan revealed that he had suffered a stroke.
Dr. Li, a brain specialist at the hospital, told reporters that the condition, highly unusual at such a young age, was most likely caused by the unhealthy lifestyle he had been leading for the past month.
The Doctor added;
The main reason is that he had irregular sleeping and eating patterns because he was not at school. The parents also tolerated his behaviors too much. A lack of nutrition and rest had led to a reduced amount of blood and oxygen in his brain and caused a cerebral stroke.
Xiaobin has been undergoing rehabilitation treatment at Jiangbin Hospital since March, but doctors say it is hard to say if he will ever make a full recovery, or even regain sensation in his left arm and hand.
Video game addiction has become a prominent societal issue among the young people in China, with an increasing number of young people choosing to ignore their studies, social lives and family to play online games.
Many parents use the so-called ‘digital detox’ rehab camps as a last resort to curbing their children’s fixation on the digital world.
