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Coast professionals are working together to find out more about how spinal damage, dubbed the “iHunch” (pictured), and sports injuries caused by overuse are ageing our kids before their time. Physiotherapist Rob Knight demonstrates what can happen to the spine with frequent use of digital devices.
A year ago, physiotherapist Rob Knight treated a 14-year-old gamer whose severe back problem resulted from hours spent in front of a computer.
The MRI scan revealed a spine that looked like that of a 50-year-old labourer and required an operation to correct.
Another patient, aged 17, developed rotator cuff problems from hunching over a computer. They were of a type normally associated with older people and surgery was required. These are not isolated cases.
According to Rob, principal of Kinetics, injuries that were previously only seen in adults are now affecting children as young as 10.
“It’s only in the last few years that we’re seeing young people who have these particular injuries,” he says. “It’s profound what we’re seeing in spinal problems. I had seven children from one school come in with headaches and the first thing you think of used to be meningitis – now I ask how much time they spend on a computer each day.
Kids’ bodies are like plasticine – they mould very quickly – and those problems can last a lifetime because as an adult they’re hard to correct.”
And while on one hand slumping in front of a screen or hand-held device is the issue, on the other it is the effect of intensive sports training on developing bodies.
“I’ve taken a real interest in the effect of higher level training on young bodies having watched my two boys grow and develop over the past 12 years,” Rob says. “Young children move and stand so naturally yet recently the effects of prolonged sitting, hunching over computers and phones, and repetitive sports training regimes are having a major and negative effect on kids. As well as back issues in teenagers there is an exponential increase in activity related childhood conditions such as Severs disease.”
Rob says there is also an increase in teens requiring hip surgery, and evidence suggests that this is due to the amount of sport and training during their rapid growth phase around the age of 12.
Early specialisation in a single sport is one culprit, with a broad range of activities, including “free play” considered better for building strength and agility in growing bodies.
In addition, as more teens are training for, and playing, a single sport several times a week – some in a number of teams, there is an increase in overuse injuries and burnout at a young age.
“Often the training is modified adult training whereas children need specific exercises to protect developing bones and joints,” Rob says.
However, without solid data to underpin these concerns, the information about how these issues are affecting children remains anecdotal. To solve this, AUT researchers will begin working with Kinetics in Whangaparaoa to gather baseline data, starting next month.
Rob says the idea for the study arose from informal talks with AUT senior lecturer and Puhoi resident Simon Walters. “He is in the academic world, studying it, and as practitioners, we’re seeing it first hand.”
The study will initially focus on sports overuse injuries, but will later look at injuries from overuse of digital devices, as this is an emerging area of interest.
Simon Walters has researched children’s experience of sport for 10 years. He says the replacement of ‘backyard, free range play’ with regulated sports, and early specialisation is an issue. He says the data will reveal the extent of the problem.
“When you’re telling parents that their child shouldn’t be playing as much football or rugby, you need the hard data behind you in the NZ context. At the moment we’re using overseas data, and you can extrapolate from that, but because it’s not local it weakens your argument.”
The data will be gathered via a questionnaire and taking part is voluntary and anonymous.
In addition, Rob and physiotherapist Jody McGowan have undertaken specialist training and are introducing a youth injury service at their Whangaparaoa clinic, starting this week.
“We want to encourage the people responsible for children’s wellbeing to be aware of how the young body develops and how to avoid the damaging effects that can follow a person into adulthood.”
