When smartphone use becomes a pain in the neck

Patients receive traction treatment at Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital on Tuesday. Doctors from Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital said that the people in the pictures were patients suffering from pain in their cervical and lumbar vertebrae who were receiving traction treatment at the hospital's rehabilitation medicine department. Wang Yin, a rehabilitation therapist at the department, which receives around 500 patients for traction treatment each week, said the pain in the lumbar vertebrae is, in most cases, caused by the straining of lumbar muscles, and is closely related to the habit of sitting for a long time without walking around or stretching muscles. Traction treatment at hospital, which lasts 20 minutes each time and requires seven treatments for a course, can help stretch and relax the muscles, Wang said. "TCM treatment discharges hanqi from our bodies' meridian pathways through cupping, acupuncture and moxibustion, so that the inside of meridians will be smooth, and the pain in muscles will be relieved," he said.