Text Neck - Is Your Smart Phone Ruining Your Cervical Spine?
Extremehead flexion angles created when texting may lead you to pain.
Regular use of your smartphone may lead to preventable neck
problems.
The condition is called text neck, Smartphone neck, iPhone neck and now (coined
by me,) Android neck. Note: These are not official medical diagnoses. All refer
to posture problems in the cervical spine that are created by prolonged use of
a cell phone, tablet or similar hand held electronic device.
Using small
electronic devices generally means you spend a lot of time with your head bent
forward. The problem is - this head action actually takes place in your
neck.
“People
get so focused on these devices that they end up holding their neck and upper
back in abnormal positions for a long period of time; enough that other people
coined the phrase ‘text neck,’ which is essentially referring to postural
pain,” says Chris Cornett, M.D., orthopaedic surgeon and spine specialist at
the University of Nebraska Medical Center Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and
Rehabilitation.
Dr.
Cornett continues, “When you hold your body in an abnormal position, it can
increase stress on the muscles, cause fatigue, muscle spasms, and even stress headaches."
Text Neck Risks
A study by Lee and colleagues published in the October 2014 issue of Ergonomics found that repetitive or
prolonged head flexion posture during smart phone use is a risk factor for
neck pain. The study looked at 18 participants who performed 3 tasks with a
smart phone: Texting, browsing and watching a video. Participants did these
activities while sitting and also when standing.
Not only
did the study identify head flexion associated with heavy smart phone use
as a risk factor for neck pain, it also found that of the 3 activities, texting
may be the biggest contributing factor to device use related neck
pain. (The authors say that texting is the most frequently
performed of these functions.) In the study, texting while sitting caused the
largest degree of head flexion.
Text Neck Symptoms
Accordingto Jeremy McVay, physical therapist and owner of McVay Physical Therapy in
Barrington, Rhode Island, possible symptoms of "iPhone neck" (or
"Android neck" - my addition) include headaches, neck pain, shoulder
pain, and nerve related symptoms such as radiating pain, numbness, tingling
and/or burning in one or both arms.
A2012 study involving 18 people conducted at Google headquarters inMountainview, California, looked at (among other things related to
tablet use) how much head flexion resulted from checking email and surfing the
web. This study also measured head flexion as people watched movies on
their tablet while sitting at a table.
The
researchers found that participants who used the tablet without a table (i.e.
with the device on their laps) had extreme head flexion. The head flexion for
movie watchers at tables was less.
How to Avoid or Prevent Text Neck
Perhapsthe best strategy for mitigating the effects of device usage on yourneck is to raise your viewing angle. For this, there are a few things to
try. You can put the tablet on a stand or on a table. If you must work
with it on your lap, consider propping it up with a pillow.
And if
you think holding the tablet up with your hands may reduce your head flexion
angle, beware. This positioning will likely tighten up the muscles
in your forearms, which can cause an entirely different type of discomfort
or pain.
Dr.
Cornett offers common sense approaches to avoiding text neck such as
getting and staying physically fit and taking regular breaks from your device.
Both strategies are excellent.
You may
also consider engaging with a posture exercise program. If you can only
do one exercise, I recommend cervical retraction for neck
re-positioning. You might also want to try a posture exercise program.
Comments
Post a Comment