What You Need To Know About The New Medical Condition Called Text Neck

Text neck is the term used to describe the injuries and pain sustained from looking down at wireless devices for too long. The symptoms associated with text neck are chronic headaches, upper back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain and increased curvature of the spine.

We usually assume that posture problems only catch up with people years after when they are in their old age, but with text neck, the effects occur rather quickly. Most of the patients are young adults and doctors express concern that patients are getting younger by the day. A recent and popular case was that of a 14 year old girl diagnosed with text neck. She is currently undergoing corrective physiotherapy.

In Dr Steven Shoshany's (a spine expert) words "Of course, text neck does not occur only from texting. For years, we've all looked down to read. The problem with texting is that it adds one more activity that causes us to look down more than in the past. This is especially concerning because young, growing children could possibly cause permanent damage to their spines as they grow." The doctors are already categorizing text neck as an epidemic, seeing as it is already widespread - everyone seems to go about with heads bent over their phones.

The best solution is to begin to adopt a correct posture when using phones and laptops and if possible, reduce usage. Whenever you use your phone, raise it to eye level instead of bending your neck to look down at it. It is also important to take frequent breaks from your phones and laptop to walk and stretch. Exercises such as neck stretches will also help.

Sources: CNN/Spinehealth/Textneck
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