Tech Neck and Upper Limb Injuries in the Digital Age
March 18, 2024
Our University of the Philippines College of Medicine class of 1999 is celebrating our silver jubilee this year – 25 years since we graduated from medical school. As silver jubilarians, we are the grand alumni homecoming hosts for the college and have lots of activities lined up through 2024. One of these activities is a series of free lunchtime webinars that are primarily educational but also part of our fundraising efforts. Webinar #5 this year featured myself as speaker and my INTARMED classmate Dr. Celeste A. Enriquez as moderator. I’m all for repurposing my own stuff, so here’s what I wrote on social media on March 11, 2024 in an effort to drum up support for this endeavor:
[Next week] I am:
A. Giving a talk that has had multiple versions since my senior year of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation residency almost 20 years ago.
B. Having a good bit of coffee to help deal with the Q&A open forum after the talk.
C. Making good use of these silver jubliarian portraits.
D. All of the above!
A bit of explanation about item A: 2004 was the first time that parts of this slide deck appeared, as part of my grand rounds talk during my senior year of residency. About every 10 years it gets updated with new technology, and I added tablets and mobile phones to the talk in 2013. Some of the slides have old technology (CRT monitors, for example), but overall the principles of ergonomics, biomechanics and the ideal computer workstation stood the test of time. This webinar video was originally recorded for a lecture with the Iloilo Medical Society’s virtual convention in June 2023; I added two slides at the very beginning to discuss a little more about tech neck.
Our webinar committee head Dr. Mel Cespedes-Cruz said we should have done an entire week for musculoskeletal issues, because the next one (webinar #6) featured my classmate and good friend orthopedic surgeon Dr. Dave Dizon discussing low back pain and lifestyle concerns.
You can view the webinar by clicking this link. Our class’ Youtube channel has the links to all webinars and other videos we produced (and will still produce) in 2024.
