Neck Injury & Risk Factors Due to Rear End Collisions
A recent study revealed that occupants that have their head turned during a rear end collision suffer greater injury than all other collisions. Manohar et al. (2006) stated that “In a 5-year retrospective study of 11,000 patients with cervical spine injury, 87.4% had soft tissue injuries…more than 25 of the patients. reported symptoms more than 5 years following whiplash” (p. 420). The symptoms commonly encountered included cranial nerve irritation, neck and upper extremity pain, restricted neck motion and paresthesia (numbness). This study concluded that “Head-turned rear impact caused significantly greater injury [to the cervical spine], as compared to head-forward rear and frontal impacts…” (Manohar et al., 2006, p.420) Therefore, when taking a history on your whiplash patients, be sure to ask, “Were you looking straight ahead or was your head turned?” as this is a “significant risk factor (a circumstance that makes a situation worse),” it is vital to determine when eliciting a client’s history.
ABOUT US
Spine & Injury Centers of San Antonio is a local network of 5 chiropractic offices. As a group, we are raising the standard of care for injured patients and their families.
If you have recently been in a car accident, or had a personal injury, sports injury, or exercise injury, and are experiencing back pain, neck pain, knee pain, whiplash, headaches, leg pain, etc, our San Antonio injury chiropractors can help!
Our goal is to get you back to living a pain-free life as quickly as possible.
Click here to find a San Antonio chiropractor near me.
Reference:
Panjabi, M. M., Ivancic, P. C., Maak, T. G., Tominaga, Y., & Rubin, W. (2006). Multiplanar cervical spine injury due to head-turned rear impact. Spine, 31(4), 420-429.