Surgery professor claims that students arrive at medical school without hand strength and skill to perform basic tasks due to too much use of electronic devices…
Professor Roger Kneebone, a professor of surgical education at Imperial College made the observation that students arrive at the medical school without having the required manual dexterity to perform simple, necessary surgical tasks such as sewing up patients after operations are done.
He made the comment as part of a campaign by Edge Foundation to invite more ingenuity into the UK school curriculum. This raises the question of whether modern lifestyles attached to use of hand-held electronic devices can affect people’s ability to use their hands.
Some of the simple tasks such as holding a pen in one’s arms correctly, were not forthcoming with youths who have had years of being accustomed to so much screen-based technology. Especially is it so when they begin doing so during their formative years.
Sally Payne, head pediatric occupational therapist at the Heart of England foundation HHS Trust, added that children are not coming to school with the same hand strength and dexterity they had about 10 years ago.
In this way, both mobile phones and other device are the culprits, say the experts. They claim that our over-reliance on modern technology is a big issue in this regard. This in turn could become a long-term challenge for our health.
A 2015 Turkish University study found that “frequent smartphone users may be more prone to experience pain in their thumbs” more than their peers who did not use mobile phones often or not every time.
A school of thought says that if you worry about your constant typing, tapping, and thumb-swiping at your devices may give you some hand problems, try to exercise. For example, Physiotherapists recommend that that holding firmly to a squeezeball for about 10 minutes 12 times for three to five seconds in each hand can help. Doing it every day can help in maintaining flexibility and muscle in the hand.
Another exercise is to stretch your fingers by holding the hand out, fingers up, palm facing away. Gently pull the fingers down toward you with the other hand, then repeat with the fingers facing downwards.
Another option is to put your phone or other electronic devices down more often that you usually do.
