When smartphone use becomes a pain in the neck

Photos showing young people sitting on a row of benches in a hospital in Shanghai, with their necks hung in traction devices, have become an online hit.

The photos, in which their necks are illuminated by red light, led to the tag "Young people rush to hospitals to hang their necks" becoming one of the most searched topics on the Sina Weibo micro blog platform and other Chinese social media apps.

Doctors from Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital said that the people in the pictures were patients suffering from pain in their cervical and lumbar vertebrae who were receiving traction treatment at the hospital's rehabilitation medicine department.

Traction treatment is not new, they said, but the ubiquitous use of digital products, and even the overuse of them, by people of all ages has made acute attacks of cervical spondylosis — wear and tear of the spinal disks — more frequent.

"Also, patients are becoming younger," said Shen Xiaoyan, a doctor from the department. "Nowadays, the largest patient community resorting to traction treatment is those between age 30 and 50, whereas it was those age 50 or above a decade ago, when electronic products were not so popular.

"I've received two patients as young as 7 lately. X-rays showed straightening of their cervical spine curvature."

She said muscles of the neck and shoulders will become quite tense if someone hunches over a smartphone for around 40 minutes.

Wang Yin, a rehabilitation therapist at the department, which receives around 500 patients for traction treatment each week, said the pain in the lumbar vertebrae is, in most cases, caused by the straining of lumbar muscles, and is closely related to the habit of sitting for a long time without walking around or stretching muscles.

Traction treatment at hospital, which lasts 20 minutes each time and requires seven treatments for a course, can help stretch and relax the muscles, Wang said.

"If the muscles are stiff, they will compress the cervical spine," she said. "And over time, it will compress the nerves of the cervical spine."

Some people may even experience displacement of the cervical spine if one side of the neck muscle is stiff and the other side is not, she added.

Wang said the red light in the photos is infrared radiation for treatment, which promotes local blood circulation and relieves muscle tension. Traction treatment and infrared radiation work better when combined.

Lo Wai-wun, from Hong Kong, was one of the patients receiving the treatment on Tuesday. The 26-year-old, who works in the internet industry in Shanghai, said she often has to sit in front of a laptop for hours while working. That aggravates the pain in her neck she has experienced since senior middle school as a result of studying very hard.

"Neck pain has become a trouble for me since around 22, as it would spread to my shoulders and trigger a headache sometimes," Lo said. "Physical examinations showed that I suffered from changes in cervical spine curvature.

"Traction treatment works for me as it's helping me recover the correct curvature. Also, I wear a collar at home to keep me from looking down."

Doctors suggested people use a phone holder to put smartphones on a desk, and recommended against using a phone while lying down.

Zhu Yi, a doctor from the hospital's department of acupuncture, moxibustion and tuina (a form of Chinese therapeutic massage), which are all traditional Chinese medicine treatments, said the use of air conditioning in summer is another important factor in the development of neck and shoulder ailments.

"TCM treatment discharges hanqi from our bodies' meridian pathways through cupping, acupuncture and moxibustion, so that the inside of meridians will be smooth, and the pain in muscles will be relieved," he said. Hanqi refers to a type of cold pathogenic factor that is believed to invade the body and cause various health problems.