Dowager’s Hump: What It Is And How To Prevent It

Between laptops, cell phones and tablets, many people spend hundreds of hours each month hunched over and staring down at one device or another.

This kind of poor posture can lead to consequences like back pain, neck pain and even an acquired round-shouldered posture known as a dowager’s hump, said Dr. Nnaemeka Echebiri, a physiatrist at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.

A dowager’s hump (or hunchback, clinically known as kyphosis) is a curvature at the bottom of the neck that creates a sort of slouching posture. “It’s often due to poor posture over time,” Echebiri said.

There are many things that can lead to the development of this hunchback posture. Unfortunately, having a desk job is one of them.

But are all desk workers doomed to have a dowager’s hump in their life? Is there anything you can do to combat it? Here’s what experts say:

Are you automatically going to develop a dowager’s hump if you work hunched over a computer screen or spend hours and hours staring down at your phone or tablet? Not necessarily, but you are at higher risk.

“Those activities in and of themselves do not lead to a dowager’s hump,” Echebiri said. But “getting used to those activities and doing them often without any postural correction exercises to offset those activities can lead overtime to that malalignment.

“If you’re not doing focused things that sort of offset that, you could find yourself liking that position more and more,” he added.

If you live a sedentary lifestyle or have poor body mechanics and poor ergonomic habits while you work, you’ll also be more likely to develop a dowager’s hump, said Dr. Kasey Komperda, an assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

As we age, it’s more likely that this kind of spine curvature will happen, said Komperda, because of the loss of bone density that is common among older folks.

“In general, women tend to be at increased risk of developing osteoporosis, so that also leads to an increased risk of women developing this deformity, particularly postmenopausal women,” Komperda explained.

People with certain genetic factors (like a family history of osteoporosis) and health conditions (such as Cushing syndrome) are also at higher risk of developing a dowager’s hump, he said.