Prevalence of impaired upper extremity neural mobility among smart device users during the COVID-19 pandemic

Both the development of various countries and people's health were impacted by the unforeseen global COVID-19 outbreak. Many countries prefer to do their daily business online. Although it was incredibly useful at the time, it still had a problem that was not properly addressed, especially among the student population.

The objective of this study was to examine the prevalence of upper extremity neural mobility among students who were using smart devices during the COVID-19 pandemic.

458 students who had previously taken home-based online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic and used a smart device for more than six hours were included in this study. The study was conducted in three phases. After being examined in the first two stages of the study, a total of 72 people were chosen for the final phase. Peripheral nerve mobility tests were performed on these 72 subjects.

This study observed that 15.72% of smart device users have been affected by forward neck posture and impaired peripheral nerve mobility in the cervical spine.

The study concludes that forward neck posture is associated with impaired peripheral nerve mobility among smart device users who were in home-based online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Hence, we suggest an appropriate treatment strategy focusing on preventing the forward neck posture through timely analysis and self-care therapies.