School Children and pain - are they just waniting attention

Having children is such a joyful experience, however when they complain of pain it can be very challenging!
Lots of questions arise- do I get them checked out, are they actually being serious or are they just wanting attention?? The type of pain we are referring to here is musculoskeletal pain. This is pain such as arm, leg, neck and back pain. While studies and statistics on musculoskeletal pain in adulthood is plentiful, data on school children is somewhat scarcer.
 
With an increasingly sedentary population, and with extended time sitting being noted as a public health concern, it is very relevant to discuss data on this particular group.
 
Recently, some researchers undertook this task and analysed pain distribution on 1,000 Danish Schoolchildren aged 8-16, and the results are very interesting (1).

Some takeaway from the study were
 

• The percentage of children who did not experience pain during the school year was just 28.5%. 71.5% of children did experience at least one episode of pain lasting one week.
• Of this percentage, 60% experienced lower extremity pain, 28.7% experienced spinal pain and the upper extremities came in last at 22.6%.
• When pain was defined as at least 3 weeks with pain during a school year, 40% reported pain with similar patterns to those for the more lenient pain definition of 1 week.

 
So research shows that pain in schoolchildren can be up to 70% of children in a school year. If we are aiming to support our children through their development and growth it is definitely worthwhile investigating the source of the complaints. If you have any concerns about musculoskeletal pain in children we are here to help at Sprouting Health. Just give us a call.
 

1. Fuglkaer S, Vach W, Hartvigsen J, Boe Dissing K, Junge T and Hestbaek L (2020), “Musculoskeletal pain distribution in 1,000 Danish Schoolchildren aged 8-16 years,” Chiropractic and Manual Therapies, 45(2020),