MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. (AP) — It doesn’t look like much of a bowling alley.

No lanes. No bowling shoes. No thunderous collisions between balls and pins. Actually no balls or pins, either at least not any you can touch.

And yet, on one recent Thursday afternoon, a few dozen senior citizens come decked out in matching team shirts gathered at the Maryland Heights Centre to test their bowling prowess against one another.

Nobody seemed to care that the action was taking place on four video game screens displayed along one wall of the dimly lit room. They still cheered for strikes and spares, and groaned at near misses and gutter balls.

It’s an increasingly common sight these days as video games based on activities such as bowling, golf and tennis are giving seniors new outlets for exercise and socialization, while also offering some health benefits. The St. Louis Senior Wii League is just one of many that has popped up in senior centers, libraries and retirement communities across the nation.

It makes sense that more seniors would be trying their hand at video games. After all, the late 2006 introduction of Nintendo’s revolutionary Wii system essentially brought gaming to the masses, with user-friendly controllers relying on motion sensors rather than confusing arrays of buttons and knobs. It can even be played one-handed.

“They didn’t build a controller like that just because they thought it would be cool to have motion control. It wasn’t an accident,” said Jesse Schell, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center and an expert on video game design.

Until she was introduced to the Wii, Jean Harms, 79, would have scoffed at the idea of picking up a game controller. “I don’t care for video games, period, like those guys that run and you have to chase different kinds of people,” Harms said.

But Wii bowling? Now that’s a different story for the Bridgeton woman, who recently rolled a 145 in league play.

She plays on one of eight teams in the St. Louis league, made up of eight area senior centers and sponsored by the South Grand Senior Ministry, a nonprofit that promotes independent living for seniors. During the season, players get together once a week to compete in a variety of individual and team categories most spares and strikes thrown by one team, for example.

The league even has its own version of home-field advantage: “We have one great projector and three OK projectors,” said Eric Sundvold, a co-director of the league. “The home team gets the great projector.”

For many of the seniors, it’s an opportunity to return albeit in virtual fashion to a game they once loved.

“Most of them can’t bowl anymore. But now they can with this game,” said Pam Bockhorst, activities director at Villa at Riverwood in Hazelwood. “We have people that will bowl from their walkers. Anybody can do it.”

And while it may not be the real thing, it’s close enough for players like Mary Linneman, 84, who stopped bowling nearly 10 years ago for health reasons.

“There comes a time you have to think about breaking a hip, and then you’re really out, so I decided to stop,” said Linneman, who plays for the Wii League Strikers of St. Ann.

Time spent tossing virtual balls down virtual lanes at virtual pins may be doing more than just giving these seniors a way to pass the time.

On a basic level, the Wii is an active rather than passive activity, with many games requiring users to stand up and move around to operate the controller. It’s not strenuous exercise, but it can help with things like hand-eye coordination, motor skills and flexibility.

“All of that is much better than sitting and not doing anything and may even be better than playing bingo,” said Dr. Ellen Binder, an associate professor of medicine and geriatrics at Washington University.

Some studies also suggest game play could slow some negative aspects of aging.

Mihai Nadin, a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, studies the impact of games on the body’s anticipatory systems, which govern the brain’s ability to adjust for changes in body position. Imagine, for example, the simple act of raising your arms in front of you. If you don’t shift your weight to compensate for that shift, you would topple.

As we age, the ability to anticipate deteriorates.

Nadin’s research suggests that decline can be slowed, though not reversed, by the right games in the right settings. The best ones, he said, are those that require players to be active and to socialize with other players.

“That human element is absolutely critical,” Nadin said.

That’s one of the biggest draws for Mary Rath, 79, one of a dozen or so players on the Florissant-based bowling team. After tossing a couple strikes to finish off one of her games, the retired Department of Defense worker talked about her brief foray into video games.

It’s easier than she expected it to be. It’s a nice bit of exercise. And it gets her out.

“It’s just something different,” Rath said. “And it’s a good mixer.” That “something different” part may offer one of the best benefits to seniors.

In general, the mere act of exercising your brain has the potential to help ward off some senility-related afflictions, said Schell, the video game expert from Carnegie Mellon. But the exercise could come from crossword puzzles just as easily as it does from a Wii.

The game’s advantage is that it’s something different from what the senior might normally do. “It exercises different parts of your brain,” Schell said. “It gets you out of your rut.”

Story from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch: www.stltoday.com

 

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