Every single person reading this right now has a smart phone, or a tablet, played a video game at some point, or has some other techie thing in his or her possession. Which means we are all going to develop some serious pains in the joints in our hands when we are older. It makes total sense, we spend literally hours on end tapping on screens, and flexing the same joints over and over again. The damage is already beginning; according to a study presented at the 2011 annual congress of the European League Against Rheumatism children are already reporting pain in their hands to their doctors during yearly physicals.
Interestingly enough young girls between the ages of 9-15 seem to report twice as much pain as boys. But it was also discovered that those involved in the study appear to send more text messages on average then their male counterparts. Many doctors are reporting that the stress found on the hands of the current youth generation is very similar to the stress found on the hands of adult assembly workers. Clearly the obvious connection here is that both parties engage in very repetitive movements for hours on end, day after day. According to Vipul N. Nanavati, MD, an orthopedic specialist and director of the upper extremity program at the Orthopedic Specialty Hospital at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore. The most common places where we see arthritis from repetitive hand use is “at the base of the thumb,This type of injury may cause shooting pain that radiates up the forearm.” Unfortunately, for our generation this issue is only going to get worse. If children are already reporting pain, imagine how bad it will be when they are in full adulthood.
We only just recently became introduced to the tablet lifestyle in the past ten years or so, and are fortunate to hopefully have a few more years until we start reporting pains of our own. Though I don’t know, some of you may already be experiencing this. There is no “cure” for arthritis, and unfortunately the only suggested solutions to this growing problem seem to be to avoid it. As in give up electronics, yeah because that’s totally easy for people to do these days. I have hope that our hero will rise soon and come up with an actual solution.
Source:
http://www.everydayhealth.com/arthritis/are-you-texting-your-way-to-arthritis.aspx