Effects of smartphone usage duration on neck dysfunction in young versus middle-aged patients with chronic mechanical neck pain / Asmaa Mahmoud Hussin Morsy ; Supervised Aliaa Mohammed Rehan Youssef , Mohammed Shawki Abdelsalam ,

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Physical Therapy - Department of Musculoskeletal Disorders

Background: The use of handheld devices such as smartphone has been associated with neck pain. However, it is unclear whether the deleterious effect of smartphone use is dependent on duration and/or user{u2019}s age or not. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare the effects of smartphone usage duration on neck dysfunction in young and middle-aged adults with chronic mechanical neck pain. Methods: Eighty females, 40 young and 40 middle-aged adults, with mechanical neck pain were recruited for this study. Patients browsed the internet continuously for 10- and 30-min, at two different sessions. Neck pain, proprioception acuity and fatigue were assessed before (baseline) and immediately after net surfing (post-task). Results: Patients in the two groups showed significant pain accentuation after smartphone usage, regardless to the duration. However, changes in pain severity were not different between the two groups (P>0.05). For Deep Cervical Flexors (DCF) fatigue, there were no significant differences within and between the two groups (P>0.05). For proprioception acuity, the middle-aged group showed increased neck extension error after the 10 min task and neck flexion error after the 30 min task (P<0.05). The young adults showed significant increase in neck flexion error after the 10-min task compared to the middle-aged patients

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