A real pain in the neck

From iPad Necks to Text Claws, city’s physiotherapists are seeing an increasing number of patients with chronic pain caused by excessive use of touch phones and tablets. Worryingly, a majority of them are under 18.

Just like the phone it is named after, the repetitive strain injury dubbed Blackberry Thumb is also passe. With Qwerty phones as good as extinct, the city’s physiotherapist are now faced with a whole new set of chronic ailments caused exclusively by touch phones and tablets, including pain in the hand, neck and back.

The worst part, say doctors, is the increasing trend of minors needing physiotherapy due to their addiction to gaming and constant chatting. Mirror found three such recent cases from across age groups.

THE IPAD NECK

One day in May, Owais Batliwala, 10, was struck by sudden pain in his neck and back while he was studying. The class 4 student of Dawoodbhoy Fazalbhoy High School in south Mumbai was addicted to gaming and his parents had in January given in to his demand for a new iPad.

“About five months later, he started complaining of severe neck pain which gradually went down to his back,” said Batliwala’s mother Mehzabin, who first thought his heavy school bag was the culprit. “He could not manage to study as the pain was excruciating.”

A relative referred Batliwala to a physiotherapist, after which the family learnt that the tablet was the real culprit. “We studied his daily routine like school timings, tuitions, play time, time spent watching TV, etc and learnt he was spending more than 90 minutes a day on his tablet playing games like Temple Run, Subway Surfers and Candy Crush,” said physiotherapist Dr Sadiya Vanjara from Noor Hospital at Masjid Bunder.

Dr Vanjara also found Batliwala played in a typical slouching position with his face immersed into the screen and without any support to the elbow. While on his bed, he would pile up several pillows and play for long hours.

“He came to us with muscle spasms on the right side of his neck. In simpler words, his muscles were extremely sore on touch due to the continuous strain,” explained Vanjara, adding Batliwala was advised to apply hot packs on his neck and do stretching exercise too.

More importantly, his parents were strictly advised to reduce his play time on gadgets to merely 10 minutes a day. “I eventually sold it,” said Mehzabin. “But even now he plays on our phones or his friends’ tablets. But I allow him to play only on the weekends.”

THE TEXT CLAW

The text claw, doctors say, is worse than its predecessor the Blackberry Thumb when it comes to strain on the muscles. While the Blackberry’s Qwerty keypad allowed the thumb to rest on a particular key for a few micro-seconds, when it comes to touch phones, the thumb is raised more often — and moves much faster — leading to more strain.

BMS student Nida Jameel, 19, whose addiction to her iPhone 5 resulted in her getting the De Quairvain Syndrome, a condition that results in the severe inflammation of muscles. From managing more than 20 chat groups to reading on the phone to shopping online and catching missed episodes of her favourite television shows, Jameel’s life revolved around her phone.

“The first time I sensed something was wrong was when I had trouble twisting the throttle on my bike,” said Jameel. “I couldn’t even turn the wardrobe keys and I started having problem while texting.”

According to Dr Vanjara, in Jameel’s case, the muscles around the back side of the thumb were first affected. “Her De Quairvain Syndrome was in a chronic stage where the pain and inflammation had travelled to the forearm, upper arm and to her neck. Dr Vanjara immediately asked Jameel to control her obsession with the phone. She was advised to apply icepacks every fours hours to reduce the inflammation and was also given kinesio tape, which relaxes the muscles.

As her condition improved, she was advised simple stretches for the thumb, hand and neck. “When using her phone, she has to strictly avoid her thumb and use the index finger,” said Vanjara. Jameel too has accepted that excess use of her phone may worsen her health. “It is difficult to not use the phone constantly. But I do put my phone on airplane mode at night now,”

SLEEPING WITH GADGET SYNDROME

Entrepreneur Shibani Shah, 28, never realised that constantly composing emails, making excel sheets and surfing the internet could leave her in excruciating pain.

Shah, who works out of home, had adopted the typical sitting style — neck slightly up resting on pillows and knees bent with the laptop or tablet resting on her thigh. This semi-sleeping position not only put enormous pressure on her tail bone, but also led to spasms in her back and neck muscles.

“She came to me at Saifee hospital with a locked neck,” said Dr Vanjara. “She couldn’t move her neck at all.”

For immediate pain management and to release the tightened muscles, Shah was given hot packs and she underwent intramuscular stimulation through a technique of dry needling – wherein sterile non-hypodermic needles were used for relaxing muscles.

Shah’s treatment now consists of several sets of stretches to release the spasm in her trapezius muscle in the neck. “My condition was so bad that I couldn’t walk without pain. I had almost burnt my skin using a pain relieving spray,” said Shah who has now improved her sitting posture and continues with her physiotherapy.

Source: The Times of India
Published: 02 Oct 2014

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Category: Features, Health alert