Our obsession with smartphones and tablets is becoming a real pain

New technology is supposed to make improvements to our lives. With our tablets and smartphones we can now work on the move, find information instantly and be in constant contact.
But if your devotion to your gadget has started to be a pain in the neck — or the hand, the shoulder or the fingers, then you’re not alone, because our commitment to our devices has started to cause us repetitive strain injuries (RSI) — dubbed iPad shoulder, iPhone neck and the latest affliction, iPad hand.
“You get these problems from hunching over and holding a tablet like a plate and using your other arm to operate it without any support,” says Dr Tony Kochhar, consultant orthopaedic surgeon and shoulder, elbow, arm, hand and wrist specialist who set up the London RSI Clinic to deal with an increasing number of patients with RSI injuries.
“When you use a computer you put your forearm on the desk, so it is supported. But with a tablet you are suspending your arm in free air.
“You can get severe headaches from tension in the back of the neck; an aching from the tip of your shoulder down the upper, outer part of the arm; pain at the back of the wrist and fingers from continuously using them; or a pinched nerve,” says Kochhar, who is seeing six to 10 new patients a week with these types of injuries in a demographic that he says is “getting younger and younger because of the iPad and working while travelling”.
Kate Moss’s recent injury, a trapped ulnar nerve that caused her a temporary paralysis in one arm, is also a risk of using a tablet. “You could get this from using devices like the iPad if your posture is bad and if you are resting your arm on something unpadded and uncomfortable,” says Kochhar.
“Ultimately, you could suffer with a prolapsed disc,” he warns. “If it is very bad and remains untreated it can press on your spinal cord and you could end up incontinent or in a wheelchair.”
Noel Kingsley, who teaches the Alexander Technique, which aims to correct and realign posture without surgery, is equally concerned.
“If someone is sitting, dropping their head and neck downwards to peer at a screen, the head, which weighs four to five kilograms, is tugging down on your neck, putting you off balance and causing a lot of strain,” he says.
“If the back muscles are not working efficiently, then we will overcompensate by doing more with the hands, and constantly overstraining the hands will lead to RSI, joint pain and arthritis in the future.
“If you want a more permanent solution you need to realign your whole posture. You will get temporary relief from physiotherapy but if you revert to bad habits, the pain will return.”
Kochhar agrees: “With any new gadget, look after yourself first. Use them in the correct posture, take regular breaks, regular stretches and look out for the warning signs.”

Try the Alexander Technique

My mother recently chided me as I checked my smartphone. “You’ll become one of those women who looks at her phone more often than her children,” she said.
I’m not there yet but my phone fixation has started to cause me a pain in the neck. My yoga teacher tells me the bones at the top of my spine are jutting out after years of dropping my chin to my chest and slumping my shoulders forward to examine my emails.
A visit to Alexander Technique teacher Noel Kingsley confirms that throughout the day I’m making my neck and shoulders work far harder than they need to. Carry on like this and I’m risking injury or a severely warped spine as I get older.
Kingsley nudges and talks the tension out of my limbs as he guides me to move from standing to sitting in a properly aligned position and as I lie on a table to allow my muscles to let go and my spine to lengthen.
Rather than consciously move my body, I think about my shoulders dropping and my back lengthening.
He explains that I simply need to learn to allow my body to make less effort. Currently I hold my left shoulder higher than my right and crane my neck forward.
At first it feels odd to straighten. I feel unbalanced, but the mirror confirms that in fact I am now in balance.
A picture of Alexander on the wall shows him looking down at something in his hand. His eyes are downcast, head tilted on the top of the spine — at a point between the ears — but his posture is straight. This is what I’m aiming for when I use my phone.
As I leave, feeling lighter, I have the words: “Neck to be free, head going up, back to lengthen” on repeat in my head. Now I just have to keep them there.

Source: UWE News

A researcher from the University of the West of England is looking into the use of the Alexander Technique (AT) as a teaching method to help people with chronic back pain and to explore the role of a specific service in an NHS pain clinic.
UWE researcher Dr Stuart McClean will be working in collaboration with Dr Lesley Wye from the University of Bristol, health practitioners at St Michaels Hospital and STAT Alexander Technique teachers. Stuart explains that “The Alexander Technique uses hands-on to achieve greater ease and poise by removing unhelpful habits that get in the way of simple activities such as sitting, standing and walking. It is all about self management and awareness.”
He said, “Alexander Technique teaches people first to pause and to realise that there are conscious choices in everyday activities such as raising a hand, talking, using a computer, or playing a musical instrument.
“Alexander Technique requires significant effort on the part of the patient, which the AT teacher calls the ‘student’. For this reason the long term impact can be very positive. Once the technique is learned the ‘student’ can use and practice the technique themselves, emphasising self management so that the effects may last after any formal treatment.
The University of Bristol and University of Southampton carried out a randomised controlled trial, published in the BMJ, and found AT was both clinically and cost effective for the treatment of back pain in primary care. This research builds on that study, as the researchers are looking at what happens when AT is introduced into a hospital pain clinic.
A participant in the trial, Ann Downton, 67, said, “I suffered from arthritis in the spine. I began to feel the benefits after four or five lessons. If you want something other than tablets to help back pain it can be expensive. Alexander Technique should be available on the NHS.”
Dr Peter Brook, the lead consultant at St. Michael’s Pain Clinic in Bristol, said, “I was very interested to read the BMJ study on back pain. The results are very encouraging and something that should be further evaluated to ascertain its value in chronic back pain. The general ethos of the Pain Management Service at University Hospitals Bristol is to encourage a self management approach to long term conditions. If lessons in the Alexander Technique can contribute to this it will be a useful addition to our range of treatment options.”
If the study demonstrates that the AT service is feasible, acceptable, cost-neutral and beneficial to service users the AT teachers will seek longer term funding to extend the service. The findings will also be disseminated widely within the local Primary Care Trust and nationally at conferences. Stuart McClean concludes, “This is a scoping study but it could have a significant impact if AT is seen to demonstrate clear benefits to the service users as well as the NHS. The results will be widely published and used to inform future decisions surrounding pain management.”

Source: Marie Claire

She’s been wearing towering stilettos her whole life – but Victoria Beckham fears her love of lavish footwear may leave her with a hunchback look as she gets older.
Instead of ditching the heels in favour of a nice pair of flatties, however, Victoria has turned to the Alexander Technique, a famous regime which can help strengthen core muscles and re-align the spine.
Friends in LA recommended Victoria try the Alexander Technique after recent upset about her photos displaying a round-shouldered look.
A source explained, ‘Victoria has been working hard on getting a straight back and correcting her terrible posture’.
It seems years of bad postural habits have ‘caused her bones to be improperly aligned, with her muscles, joints and ligaments taking more stress than they should’.
The regime appears to be doing the trick. Said the source, ‘You can tell that something is working as the years of Victoria’s shoulders being slumped are now over’.
Many actors and dancers practice the correction regime in an attempt to improve movement and eliminate bad postural habits, which can be picked up over the years.
Actress Juliet Stevenson hailed the method as ‘miraculous’ while novelist Aldous Huxley claimed it cured him of ‘neurotic tendencies’.
Even Lenny Henry and Anthea Turner have had practitioner courses in the technique, which is said to drain stress and tension from the muscles, ease back pain and improve breathing problems. It also boosts physical endurance and flexibility, with claims it can improve women’s fertility.
Victoria, who is already said to be ‘walking straighter,’ is hoping for a double whammy of results for her twice-daily, post-gym efforts.
The designer also suffers problems with her feet. Recent reports say the workaholic mum-of-three refused a painful-sounding bunionectomy operation because the medical procedure would have left her out-of-action for weeks.