Younger People Getting Older Sooner

The health and wellbeing of younger people is changing rapidly, and NOT for the better, especially when it comes to back and neck pain.

I have been privileged to have been entrusted by several thousand patients over the years to relieve them of their pain and suffering. It is quite alarming to see a drastic shift in the demographics of our clinics over the past five years or so. During the late 1980’s, through the 1990’s and 2000’s, the average age of patients coming in with a variety of musculoskeletal conditions, primarily low back pain, sciatica, herniated discs, neck pain, shoulder pain, head pain etc., was around 50+ years old.

Yes, we take care of people of all ages, from new-born babies to amazing people in their 90’s. In the past ten years we have been correcting “tech neck” in kids as young as 10 years old. These young kids are suffering severe, sometime debilitating neck pain and headaches as a result of spending countless hours looking at their electronic devices.  Now, we are seeing many young people in their 20’s with early signs of spinal degeneration and arthritic changes in their necks and backs.

What motivated me to write this article today was, every new patient coming to our clinic for the first time in the past three weeks, was in their 30’s. All born in the 1980’s. All of them with reversed Cervical spine curves and associated neck and trap pain, and quite a few of them with rather large herniated discs in their low back, and no history of accidents or trauma typically associated with a hernia.  What do they all have in common besides their age group? They all spend their days sitting, most of them, in front of a computer screen for the past 10-15 years.  They are airline pilots, researchers, lawyers, doctors, students, truck drivers, professors, programmers, business owners etc.

What can we do about this? It may be common sense, but common sense is not that common these days. We all need to get moving our bodies and stretching frequently throughout our workday. We need to take frequent breaks from our technology, straighten out our posture, look at the ceiling and stretch our arms over our heads.  Hold your phone at chest level so that you only have to look down using your eyes without the need to bend your head and neck forward.

What we are witnessing is known as “slow trauma”. Contrary to a sudden fall or car accident or sports injury that happens in a split second, slow trauma is the result of consistently putting unhealthy mechanical stress on our spinal bones, muscles, ligaments and tendons every day, day after day. This causes the soft tissues to be chronically stretched and strained, resulting in them becoming inflamed, swollen, tired and frequently painful.  Over time, this chronic inflammation is what becomes “arthritis”.  The very scary thing I am telling you all today is, arthritic changes are visible on X Ray of the spines of younger and younger people.

This is no joke and cannot be ignored by our health care system. If this trend continues, which most likely it will only get worse, our health care systems will be flooded with millions of young people suffering from neck and back pain, herniated discs and many of the co-morbidities associated such as, decreased lung capacity, headaches, cardiac issues, cognitive deficits, ADHD and even depression and low self-esteem. The list goes on. 

Corporations and health services should look at poor posture as a real health risk and invest in programs to treat employees with musculoskeletal pain and suffering, better yet, treat their posture and PREVENT the pain and suffering. Especially the Reversed Cervical Curve in the neck. That is a slow trauma and a slow killer. Integration of Chiropractic, Osteopathic and Physical Therapy into a preventive strategy will not only reduce suffering but prevent and lower overall medical spending, reduce absenteeism and enhance employee productivity and job satisfaction. Only good things can come from a preventive strategy when you treat the cause and not only the symptoms.

If you want to learn about the best solutions, there is no “one size fits all”. Reach out and I will be happy to guide you toward an appropriate solutions for your organization. If your employee population is working remotely, seriously consider using a high quality, data driven, Virtual Physical Therapy solution.