What is a widow’s hump?
The name widow’s hump came into use due to the fact that the disease was once most often faced by older women. Other common names are, for example, buffalo neck or cervical hump. Nowadays, the disease affects many young people of both sexes – due to the radical change in the lifestyle of developed societies.
A widow’s hump is a thickening of tissue in the lower part of the cervical spine, in the area of the transition zone between the cervical and thoracic spine. It is visible to the naked eye as a bulge, an accumulation of adipose tissue on the nape of the neck. Together with the widow’s hump, there is often thoracic kyphosis (a characteristic rounding of the thoracic spine), the protrusion of the head and shoulders forward.
The causes of the formation of a widow’s hump in a particular patient can be indicated by a doctor.
Among the factors that can affect the formation of a widow’s hump, the following are indicated:
- sedentary lifestyle,
- spending many hours of time in front of a computer monitor in the wrong body posture,
- lack of physical activity,
- mental and emotional problems.
In order to get rid of the hump, you should go to a specialist who develops a treatment plan – and this often involves rehabilitation exercises and treatments with a physiotherapist. Sometimes there is a need to perform surgery.
It is worth going to the doctor as soon as possible, because the widow’s hump is associated with numerous ailments – back pain, numbness of the neck and neck, swallowing disorders, headache and dizziness, difficulty breathing, swelling of the fingers, tingling of the hands, stiffness of the mandible and others.
Spending a few or even several hours in front of a computer monitor in a sitting (or semi-reclining!) position is one of the big risk factors when it comes to posture defects, spine diseases, back and head pain – such as tech-neck, pelvic tilt or widow’s hump. Let’s remember that prevention is better than cure, so let’s change bad habits at work at the computer right now.
Let’s take care of a comfortable chair with elbow support, preferably swivel. Let’s set the desk at such a height that it is possible to comfortably rest the forearms on it. The top edge of the computer monitor must be at eye level. The monitor itself should be at least 40 cm away (it is said to be 40-100 cm, depending on individual needs). Let’s also remember about the footrest inclined at an angle of about 15 degrees.
When sitting at a desk, the spine should be straight – the line of the back and forearms resting on the desk should form an angle of 90 degrees. Special attention should be paid to whether we do not tilt our head forward and stretch our neck towards the monitor.
Let’s follow the health and safety rule, according to which there is a 5-minute break per hour of work in front of the computer. Let’s move away from the desk, do a few exercises, move and stretch.
Let’s also take care of the daily dose of physical activity. A good idea is yoga or other exercises to stretch and reduce muscle tension. The remedy for numerous ailments is sport.
Projekt otrzymał dofinansowanie z Norwegii poprzez Fundusze Norweskie 2014-2021, w ramach programu „Dialog społeczny – godna praca”.
