Role Of Chin Tucking On Pain And Disability Of Text Neck Syndrome

Abstract

Background: Text Neck Syndrome occurs due to excessive use of any smartphone/ laptop / gadget in improper posture of upper cervical and scapular area that results into flexion of neck in forward direction, flattening of curvature of spine and stretching of neck muscles. This word was given by Dr. Lean Fishman. If text neck syndrome is not treated on time, it can lead to severe damages such as loss of normal curve of spine, early degenerative / arthritic changes, mal-alignment of spine, degenerative changes of spine, compression of intervertebral disc, peripheral nerve damage, muscle damage and loss of lung capacity. Chin tucking exercise involves drawing the head straight back to line up the ear with shoulders, it resembles like making double chin. The head is retracted without flexion or extension of the neck. It restores the natural curvature of cervical spine. The aim of this study is to gain insight into the effect of chin tucking exercises on neck pain and disability of text neck syndrome.

Method: The students of various allied health science courses were assessed for their neck pain and text neck syndrome. Smartphone addicted adults with neck pain for more than three months were selected after their consent. All the participants were assessed for their pain and disability using VAS and NDI, their demographic data were collected and randomly divided in two groups. Participants of group A were given chin tucking exercises along with conventional treatment for neck pain and participants of group B were given conventional treatment for neck pain. All participants were assessed for VAS and NDI after four weeks of intervention. Collected data was entered in to Microsoft excel sheet and analysed using JAMOVI software to describe the participants’ demographic features and type of their mobile use

Results: The selected 350 participants having neck pain more than three months were randomly divided into two groups having 175 participants in each group. There were 28 male and 147 female participants in group A and 47 male and 128 female participants in group B. In total 275 participants were female and 75 participants were male. The mean age for the participants of group A was 21.98±2.17 and for group B was 22.68±3.09. Participants of group A who received chin tucking exercises along with conventional treatment showed statistically more significant improvement in their neck pain and disability.

Conclusions: The findings from this study provide valuable insight into the effect of chin tucking exercises on the neck pain and disability in text neck syndrome.