DUBAI // Teenagers thrive on technology, but doctors are reporting increasing cases of youngsters developing muscular-skeletal problems as a result of long hours spent on smartphones or tablets.
Looking at your phone for long hours, shoulders raised and head lowered as you check emails or Facebook, can leave teenagers and young adults with much more than a stiff neck and a few aches and pains, said Dr Tamara Ghazi, medical director of a sports medicine clinic in Dubai Health Care City.
“What has amazed me is the rise in pain, in peripheral joints,” said Dr Ghazi.
“You would think a chiropractor works mainly with back pain, but thumbs, wrists, elbows and shoulders become a more frequent area of complaint.
“Social media easily takes up 30 per cent of our day, even when we are busy. ‘BlackBerry thumb’ is a commonly used term referring to inflammation of the proximal phalangeal thumb joint from over typing. Overuse leads to wear and tear and degeneration and the body fights back with inflammation, which eventually causes pain.”
Another common problem is ulnar neuropathy, which Dr Ghazi blamed on using tablet computers such as iPads. The disorder occurs when the area from the little finger to the wrist goes numb because of the way the iPad is held for long hours with the wrist being over-flexed.
“This puts a compressive strain on the inside of the wrist and increases the pressure around the ulnar nerve,” she said.
Dr Gustavo Rydberg, a general practitioner and osteopath at Up and Running clinic in Dubai, said his patients were often young teenagers, and warned that if nothing was done to correct the problem, the consequences could be severe.
“The tendinitis in the two thumbs from this ‘BlackBerry thumb’ condition basically stops you from gripping anything. I’ve seen people I’ve had to inject with steroids as they were unable to use their thumbs for any daily activities such as driving, picking up bags and so on.”
Reading on tablets is as much to blame as constant texting for causing severe neck pain and headaches, said Dr Rydberg, as the neck is constantly in extreme flexion (hanging forward with the chin towards the chest). The head, when upright, weighs about 5kg, but when hanging forward its weight increases greatly and the centre of gravity changes, forcing the body to compensate in other ways. This causes complications from back pain to headaches.
Dr Rydberg said maintaining good posture while using these devices was key – keeping the neck in line with the spine, keeping the device higher up to look at. “I’ve seen teenagers who are spending the entire afternoon, two or three hours or more on the couch staring at the phone.”
Ian Houghton, doctor of naprapathy, a mix of physiotherapy and osteopathy, from Scandinavian Health and Performance, said there were many long term implications for the younger generation growing up with devices that even override the need to sit upright at a desktop computer. “[They]will be at much greater risk of hand, wrist, elbow, shoulder and neck pain if they do not manage their posture and time.”
Mr Houghton said the ergonomics of using the devices has quite a number of pitfalls. “Keeping our elbows and wrists in shortened positions for extended periods of time can compress structures such as your ulnar or median nerve as well as increased strain and decreased blood flow to the muscles of the forearm.”
mswan@thenational.ae
