Effect of Postural Correction Exercises on Shoulder Muscles Tenderness and Performance in Subjects Addicting Smartphones

Prolonged VDTs operation is a leading cause of musculoskeletal disorders and cumulative trauma disorders such as stiff shoulders, neck soreness, carpal tunnel syndrome, and low back pain among office employees. The problems are intensified by wrong work postures, such as flexed neck, wrists, or excessively flexed forearms.Smartphone is a mobile hand-held VDT device with advanced computing capability, such as internet communication, information retrieval, video display and other capabilities. Being portable, smartphones have had a large impact on modern everyday life on terms of inducing continuous mechanical stress on shoulder and neck tendons and muscles caused by it's prolonged use.

Attaining ideal posture puts least stress on spinal structures. A good posture of head and shoulder is attaining by keeping ears aligned with the shoulders and shoulder joints retracted. Person attaining ideal posture put least stress on spinal structures. The commonest posture adapted by smartphone users is bending their neck and staring at the mobile screen, which subsequently causes postural alteration and leads to neck pain. It is found that there is extremely significant correlation between prolonged use of smartphone and forward head posture.

Posture correction exercises correct postural alterations like forward head posture and rounded shoulder posture. It is found that deep neck flexors, isometric extension, prone chin tucks and chest stretches are effective in correcting forward head posture by improving craniovertebral angle. Scapular stabilization exercises are found to be effective in increasing shoulder range of abduction and external rotation and in decreasing forward head and shoulder postures.