Beware of Text Neck Syndrome from Mobile and Social Media Addiction
Those of you who are addicted to your phone, be it engaging in social media, chatting, or playing games, apart from problems with your eyes, you may fall prey to Text Neck Syndrome which affects the neck, shoulders, and spine.
What is Text Neck Syndrome ?
Text Neck Syndrome is pain in the neck, pain in the muscles of the neck and shoulder, and may even involve a degeneration of the bones, joints, or spinal discs in the neck. This becomes a problem when injury around the neck area happens over and over again through the use of mobile phone or other electronic devices over a long period of time.
Symptoms of Text Neck Syndrome
Symptoms include chronic pain in the neck and shoulders. Those with a severe case might feel numbness from the neck to the hands or weakness of the arms and hands. These symptoms may be temporarily alleviated through medication or physical therapy but will return if the patient continues to use their mobile phone excessively.
Problems leading from Text Neck Syndrome
There are several levels of severity of Text Neck Syndrome from minimal pain caused by an infection of the muscles along the neck and shoulders to severe pain from the degeneration of the bones or spinal discs which depresses the spinal cord or nerves along the neck causing numbness or weakness in the arms and hands.
Posture affecting the neck
Using your mobile phone for long periods of time in a day can cause Text Neck Syndrome because while we are using our phone, our head is protruding forward, our shoulders are hunched, and our back is arched, which is a bad posture for the body.
How to prevent it
Preventing Text Neck Syndrome is possible through adjusting your posture and your behavior while you are using your mobile phone or other electrical devices. You should try to align your neck so it is as straight as possible and don’t hunch your shoulders and arch your back. Try to change your posture every now and then if you are using your phone for long periods of time.
Treatment
The treatment of Text Neck Syndrome can be divided into 2 phases:
- Physical therapy can help relax your tense muscles and strengthen them through exercise while adjusting your posture will help you maintain an appropriate posture for your health. Medication to treat infection, alleviate pain, and relax your muscles can all help to do away with the pain.
Patients with severe pain, degeneration of the bones or spinal discs, and depression on the spinal cord or the nerves may have to consider surgery. - You can prevent the recurrence of Text Neck Syndrome by adjusting your posture while doing activities and establishing a good behavior when using your mobile both in terms of posture and the duration of using the phone.
In cases of the degeneration of the bones or spinal discs or depression on the nerve, you may have to consider surgery. Endoscopic surgery with a small incision wound is now possible for surgery in the neck area. This type of surgery lessens the chance of injury to the nerve as it utilizes a special equipment which increases the accuracy and safety of the procedure. With the surgery having a high level of success, recovery is faster than normal surgeries.
Nowadays, Text Neck Syndrome can be prevented through the use of mobile phone applications. These apps will check the angle of the tilt of the screen and calculate the angle of your neck while using the phone. If it detects that the neck is at an inappropriate angle, it will send out an alert for the user to change their posture.
