Boy fell seriously ill after eight-hour video game binges

Doctors feared child had cancer but then discovered ‘growth’ was due to refusal to take a lavatory break

A BOY aged 10 addicted to video gaming has been treated in hospital after his bowel and bladder ballooned out of his pelvis when he stopped going to the lavatory in order to keep on playing. Dr Jo Begent, a top paediatrician at University College Hospital (UCH) in London, said the boy was playing World of Warcraft, Call of Duty and Fifa eight hours at a time and became so seriously constipated that his bowel and bladder stopped functioning.

She told the NSPCC’S annual conference yesterday that she feared a hard “craggy mass” protruding from his pelvis was cancer but an MRI scan revealed it was a distended bowel and bladder. Dr Begent said his was the worst of a number of cases she had witnessed of children becoming addicted to gaming or social media.

She said the case showed gaming and social media addiction was not only harming players’ mental health but their physical well-being too.

It comes days after the World Health Organisation (WHO) classified gaming disorder as a medical condition, enabling sufferers to be treated on the NHS.

Dr Begent told The Daily Telegraph: “His father was addicted to gaming and had facilitated his children becoming addicted to video games. The boy had been an incredibly gifted footballer.”

It took two years of NHS treatment and support to wean him off his addiction and stabilise his family life. He was still “not 100 per cent” but was playing games in a more settled way, she said. She added that the other children she had treated suffered sleep deprivation after spending all night gaming or on social media. “As a result of that there were school issues and children falling out of school,” she said. Although parents had an important role, she said gaming firms had the technology to impose automated time limits.

♦ A minister has called for social media firms to use AI to prevent online bullying. Matt Hancock, the Culture Secretary, said new laws would tackle cyberbullying and online child sexual exploitation. “Social media platforms are effectively public spaces. And the owner of any public space, online or offline, has a duty of care to the public who are invited in,” he said.

And all major pornographic websites had agreed to introduce age verification procedures this year to stop under-18s seeing their material, Murray Perkins, of the British Board of Film Classification told the conference. Websites in breach could be blocked.

Gaming disorder has been officially classified as a mental health condition in the World Health Organisation’s new version of the International Classification of Diseases.

What does that mean? The ICD is a tool used by healthcare professionals around the world to classify what makes us sick and what kills us. It contains some 55,000 unique codes for injuries, diseases and causes of death, providing a common language that allows medical professionals to share health information across the globe. All of these individual pieces of information, which categorise everything from a leg broken in a skiing accident to a heart attack, give us a detailed picture of disease and injury trends around the world.

Countries use the information to decide how to allocate their healthcare spending and how to organise their health services according to the needs of populations. Statisticians need it to understand health trends.

Officially recognising the problem of gaming addiction as a disorder should mean we’ll get better at identifying those who may need professional help, and that sufferers receive better care. It may encourage games manufacturers to look at their addictive qualities, too.

The decision to include gaming disorder in the classification was taken after sifting through large amounts of evidence, and it reflects a consensus of experts from different regions of the world who were involved in the WHO consultations.

While gaming disorder may not be as common as depression or anxiety, we know it exists. Some studies suggest it affects between one and four per cent of players. Clinicians around the world are already having to deal with its consequences. The disorder is defined as a particular pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour which significantly impairs people’s ability to function normally. Many parents worry about the amount of time their children spend playing games online, but those in the grip of a gaming disorder prioritise playing over other interests in their lives and regular daily activities – sometimes not even eating or going to the bathroom.

As with other addictions, this can have implications for gamers’ physical and mental health, their social lives and how they cope with work or school. Further, evidence shows there are treatment approaches such as talking therapies – already demonstrated to be effective in the management of mental and substance use disorders – which can successfully help people with gaming disorder.

All this led to the decision to add gaming disorder to the ICD list. The inclusion has caused some concerns that linking gaming with disease could stigmatise people who like to play video games. But it’s important to remember that for someone to be diagnosed with gaming disorder, their behaviour must be of a particular nature and severity to significantly affect their social lives, relationships and work. It must also be present for at least 12 months before a diagnosis is assigned.

It’s also critical to point out that, as with some other disorders due to substance use or addictive behaviours – gambling or alcohol addiction, for instance – only a small proportion of those who game will show symptoms of the disorder. The new version of the ICD has been updated to reflect changes in society, and keep pace with evolving health conditions that emerge; gaming is one of them.

We hope that recognising gaming disorder as a medical condition will increase awareness among people who might be at risk, so that they can get the help they need. We also hope it will stimulate further research, international collaboration and monitoring of trends, and, particularly importantly, the preparedness of health professionals to diagnose and manage these conditions. This is what the WHO is about – getting better statistics so that people get the care they need.

Not only will this new classification empower health professionals to treat the problem of gaming disorder better; it should also raise public awareness that this is a very real problem with established risks.