WhatsAppitis : Recent Study on SMS Syndrome

The muscles and tendons of the thumb are very strong but are not designed for the type of intense activity associated with many of today's handheld devices. Muscle fatigue and excessive muscle tension can cause pain and ache in the muscles and restrict the joint flexibility. Over the long term this kind of excessive use can irritate the tendons and lead to premature arthritis. The repetitive strain injury so called SMS syndrome and recently called as WhatsAppitis, is a rapidly growing condition as more people use thumb-operated gadgets WhatsAppitis is technically known as De Quervain's syndrome, BlackBerry thumb, gamer's thumb, washerwoman's sprain, radial styloid tenosynovitis, mother‟s wrist, mommy thumb or “teen texting tendonitis. The current study compared such 200 individuals who are over using the electronic gadgets like mobile phones and tablet for sending texts for a longer duration with the normal volunteers (control group). The analyzed report shows that the extremely statistical significant between the control and experimental group while we compare the range of motion and muscle strength of wrist , thumb and index finger between control and experimental group. No matter how fast or how slow you text, excessive texting is not good for our fingers including wrist. WhatsAppitis can be a form of tendinitis, tenosynovitis or a combination of both of those disorders. In either case it means something is irritated, inflamed and swollen.