Preventing the progression of text neck in a young man: A case report

Abstract

Text neck describes an overuse injury of the cervical spine resulting from the repetitive stress of prolonged forward head flexion while looking down on a mobile screen. This case report describes a 24-year-old young man who presented with a 12-month history of head and neck pain and paresthesia of the right upper limb. The patient worked as a YouTuber and has been editing and posting videos on the website for three years. One year prior to referral for chiropractic assessment, the patient first visited his family physician for similar complaints. Based on cervical radiographs, the diagnosis of cervical spondylosis was given. Previous management included pain medication and muscle relaxants. Interventions included repeated physical therapy, cervical traction, and acupuncture, with some temporary relief during the subsequent year. However, severe flare-up of the symptoms occurred, which was brought about by working for extended periods on his smartphone, for which the patient sought chiropractic attention. X-ray imaging showed cervical kyphosis with C5 vertebral rotation, hypertonicity of the paraspinal muscles, and paresthesia in the right C6 dermatome distribution, which were consistent with text neck syndrome associated with cervical spondylosis and right C6 radiculopathy. The intervention consisted of improving posture while texting, cervical manipulation, and extension traction therapy. After 9 months of treatment sessions, the symptomatic and functional improvement was reflected by the radiographic changes in the cervical curve correction and the normalized paraspinal muscle tension on surface electromyology. Frequent breaks along with correct posture while using smartphones will be the key entities to prevent the occurrence of text neck syndrome.

Reducing Cervical Retrolisthesis With Long-Term Monthly Chiropractic Maintenance Care: A Case Report

“…This report demonstrates prompt alleviation of neck pain and radicular symptoms attributed to degenerative cervical retrolisthesis by multimodal chiropractic intervention, and the gradual regression of cervical retrolisthesis during 13 years of subsequent MC. The positive results recounted in this paper are consistent with those of recent reports that found symptom relief in the initial phase and regression of cervical slippage (anterolisthesis/retrolisthesis) after months of chiropractic care [ 4 , 5 ]. The MC strategy requires only a slightly higher number of planned visits and should be considered as an adjuvant treatment for selected patients with persistent spinal pain who respond well to an initial course of manipulative therapy [ 9 ].…”

“…Actually, degenerative cervical spondylolisthesis is more common than previously thought. In particular, the new overuse injury of modern life, known as “text neck syndrome”, distinctly increases the prevalence of cervical spondylolisthesis among smartphone users and office workers [ 4 , 5 ]. Degenerative cervical spondylolisthesis is most common in C3/4 and C4/5 [ 1 , 3 ], occurring in 46% (81 of 176) of patients at C3/4 and 49.4% (87 of 176) of patients at C4/5 [ 3 ].…”

“…Non-surgical management of spondylolisthesis includes pain control, collar bracing, physiotherapy, and chiropractic treatment [ 15 , 16 ]. Restoration of spinal stability using conservative approaches may prevent progression of the disease and various forms of deformity [ 4 , 5 ]. In non-surgical management of low-grade spondylolisthesis, treatment efficacy more often relates to improvement of symptoms and not to repositioning of the slipped vertebra [ 16 ].…”

“…Muscle imbalance is associated with functional disability in patients suffering from degenerative spondylolisthesis. Neck pain and muscle spasms can be temporarily relieved in most patients during the initial phase of manipulative therapy [ 4 , 5 ], so the spinal function can return to a balanced state [ 6 ]. Notably, manual interventions are not aimed at correcting the slippage.…”

Structural rehabilitation of the cervical lordosis and forward head posture: a selective review of Chiropractic BioPhysics^® case reports

“…Sixty individual patients were reported to be treated by CBP methods to restore the cervical lordosis and/or reduce AHT as reported in 41 peer-reviewed manuscripts (Table 1). The majority of cases were located from the CBP NP website, however, 5 more cases were located from searchers on Pubmed (n=1 31) ) ICL (n=1 32) ) and ResearchGate (n=3 [33][34][35] ). Not including the series by Shahar 71) (reported group average only), on average, there was a 14.1° improvement in cervical lordosis after an average of 40 treatments over an average of 16 weeks.…”