Consequências do uso prolongado de smartphones sobre a coluna cervical e recomendações fisioterápicas

Abstract

The use of smartphones has grown exponentially in recent years as part of people's daily lives. As a result, the use of these devices is associated with inappropriate postures, which, if maintained for long periods, contribute to the onset of pain symptoms and discomfort in the neck, shoulders, elbows, arms, wrists, hands and fingers. Therefore, this study aims to review in the literature what are the impacts that the prolonged use of smartphones cause in the cervical region of its users and to establish recommendations for physiotherapeutic interventions for the prevention and treatment of these dysfunctions. Methods: This is a literature review in which the keywords smartphone, neck pain, text neck, treatment, cervical and physiotherapy and their respective translations into Portuguese were used. Three databases were used: Pubmed, PEDro and Scientific Electronic Library Online (Scielo). The search was carried out from February to May 2023. Results: By crossing the keywords, 1,483 articles were initially found. After applying the exclusion criteria, 6 articles were selected. In the selected articles, a correlation between neck pain and cell phone use was observed, however, none addressed the relationship with physiotherapeutic interventions, exploring recommendations. Thus, a new survey was carried out in order to find articles that addressed physiotherapeutic action in the treatment of neck pain, but unrelated to cell phone use. From this new search, 4,173 articles were found, of which only 5 were selected according to the criteria of inclusion and exclusion adopted in the present study. Conclusion: Unlike expected, the selected articles differed regarding the influence of smartphone use and the occurrence of neck pain, presenting different conclusions. Of the selected articles, only three showed a harmful relationship between excessive cell phone use and cervical spine pain. The other articles showed no correlation. It is believed that this divergence is mainly due to the different forms/methods of research used in the studies.