Prevalence Of Pain In Scapular Muscles In Video Gamers

Abstract

Playing video games is one of the most popular leisure activities in the world. Continuous sitting posture led to forward head, rounded shoulder and kyphotic posture. Virtual rumble can result in real chronic muscle pain as gamers adapt posture which are uncomfortable and don’t realize it until the game ends.

Aim: To find out the prevalence of pain and most affected scapular muscle by using self- reported questionnaire in video gamers.

Material and Methodology: This was a Cross Sectional Survey.  280 subjects were screened for the study from which 150 subjects were selected as per the inclusion criteria which was video gamers having PlayStation playing for 1.5 hours or more per day. Numerical Pain Rating Scale (NPRS) was the selected outcome measure.

Result: There was a high prevalence of pain which shows 79% of gamers experience pain while 21% didn’t experience pain in the neck, shoulder and upper back region of age group 22-35. Levator scapulae, upper and lower fibers of trapezius with their p values by ANOVA being significant at less than 0.05. It is evident that playing video games for longer duration causes pain in supraspinatus muscle.

Conclusion: This study states that there is high prevalence (79%) of pain in video gamers who play video games for more than or equal to 13hours and most affected scapular muscle was supraspinatus.