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Inside Section 1 From: A Patient's Guide to WhiplashDr. Art Croft ForwardLiterally millions of Americans are injured each year when
the vehicle they are traveling in is struck, usually from behind, by another
vehicle. Most of these crashes involve passenger cars, and most recently,
sport utility vehicles. Despite the fact that the resulting injury, usually
referred to as whiplash, has evolved into
virtually a metaphor for ambulance chasing attorneys, unscrupulous doctors, and
greedy injured parties, this reputation is ill deserved. Large scale studies and unbiased government statistics
clearly indicate that it’s a problem of massive proportion, and even the Insurance
Research Council—a body which conducts research on behalf of a consortium of
most of the major insurance companies in this country—reports that fraud occurs
in less than 10% of cases. Thus, the injury is real and the public health
problem significant, resulting in as many as 150,000 disability claims every
year and at least $19 billion paid out in medical costs. And this is, perhaps,
only the tip of the iceberg: The total toll on society from lost wages,
diminished tax base, lowered worker productivity, shifts and strains in family
support systems, unreported treatment costs, self-treatment costs, and other
difficult-to-measure, but considerable costs add significantly to the overall
burden on society. If you are reading this booklet, I am no doubt preaching to
the choir: you have probably already learned first hand about the reality of
the injury. You’ve come to the right place for treatment though, and, with
diligence on your part, there’s a very good chance you won’t become one of the
less fortunate statistics. In fact, that is what this booklet is designed to
prevent. In Part 1 you will learn about how and why whiplash injuries occur,
the nature of these injuries and the types of symptoms that are common. In Part
2 you will learn what to expect from treatment and what things you can do to
help yourself recover optimally. This booklet is not designed
to allow you to forego the doctor’s care, or even to limit it. It is designed,
instead, to enhance that care. Working as a team, you and your doctor can
achieve the maximum results in the shortest possible time; with the least
overall disruption in your busy life. There is a general tendency in all of us to be hopeful and
optimistic. And, we’ve all had bumps, bruises, and strains many times in our
lives. Almost without exception, these minor injuries heal in a short time if
left alone. Naturally then, we expect this whiplash injury to heal in the same
fashion. Unfortunately, this optimism is unfounded for many people. They are
surprised, and then greatly disappointed, to find that their discomfort
lingers—and frequently intensifies over time. Whiplash trauma subjects the
human spine to surprisingly high forces and is unlike any of life’s everyday
minor mishaps. So please be warned: This is a condition where watching and
waiting is a risky gamble indeed. Structural changes in your spine begin to
take place early, and your doctor will get much better results if he can
actively guide you through the healing process from the very beginning. If you have been through the waiting process already, only
to find, weeks or months later, that your pain lingers on, take heart. There’s
hope for you as well. Your doctor is an expert at treating these conditions
even in the advanced stages and you can usually expect to see results soon
after beginning care. In either case, for the best possible outcome, follow
your doctor’s advice and become an active participant in your care. This
booklet will show you how. I certainly acknowledge the fact that both doctors and
patients come in both genders. However to avoid the tedium and distraction of
repeatedly using dual pronouns like he/she and his/her, I will use the male
gender in this book and hope that readers will understand and not be offended. Finally, I use the terms doctor
and chiropractic physician interchangeably
in this booklet. When referring to medical physicians I will mention them
using that term or by their specialty (e.g., ophthalmologist). Dr. Arthur C. Croft Director, Spine Research Institute of San Diego PART 1. About WhiplashIts HistoryWhiplash injuries are not new to our mechanized society. In
the last century, not long after the mighty locomotive made its debut, doctors
began seeing patients who complained of a number of odd symptoms, such as
headaches, neck soreness, back pain, blurred vision, difficulty concentrating,
etc. These patients had one thing in common: all had been riding on a train in
a passenger car that had been struck abruptly from the rear by another car as
it was being coupled. They also had something in common with today’s modern
automobile passenger who experiences the same constellation of symptoms after
a rear impact collision in a motor vehicle. Today, we call it whiplash.
It’s not the best term, because it really describes only the mechanism of
injury not the actual condition. Nevertheless, it’s universally understood and
used by doctors and patients alike. It’s often associated with a seemingly
bizarre collection of symptoms. So bizarre, in fact, that many physicians who
are not trained or experienced in this area often dismiss them as being all in the head. This stigma also was
attached to the nineteenth century train injuries, which became known as railway spine. And, just as today,
nineteenth century patients fought with insurance companies whose doctors
dismissed their complaints as imagined or trivial. Another special group once suffered from a form of whiplash:
military pilots whose planes were launched from the decks of aircraft. In the
earliest of these catapult launches, there was no protection for the pilot’s
head and neck. As he experienced great acceleration upon launch of his
aircraft, his head would be snapped rearward with great force, often resulting
in severe injuries. Some pilots even lost consciousness and crashed. Many
careers were ended this way until somebody discovered that a head restraint,
which limited this rearward motion of the pilot’s head, could prevent such
injuries. Unfortunately, in contrast to those found in today’s
multimillion dollar military aircraft, the head restraints in modern passenger
cars are poorly designed and frequently inadequate in preventing injury in
passengers subjected to rear impact crashes. The Insurance Institute for
Highway Safety recently reported that only 3% of the 164 cars tested had head
restraints which they rated as “good.” And the fact that they do not generally
protect occupants from neck injury is well supported in the medical literature.
What’s worse is the fact that only 20% of passengers and drivers actually know
how to— or take the time to—adjust those restraints that are actually
adjustable. We’ll discuss that subject later. In the 1950s, researchers began to take a more serious look
at whiplash injuries. Investigators at UCLA first conducted actual rear impact
crashes at low speeds to simulate real world crashes (real world implying, in this case, the very type of crash that happens every day on the streets of the
city or on the highway). The volunteer in those crashes was equipped, as
was the car itself, with sensitive instruments which recorded the actual
acceleration (usually expressed in the unit g) experienced in the crash.
Perhaps the most important discovery in that research was the finding that the
human volunteer actually experienced 2˝ times more acceleration than the car
itself—a finding that goes a long way toward explaining why the car’s occupants
can be significantly injured, even when no visible damage to the car is noted.
In fact, more than half of all whiplash injuries occur in crashes in which
there is little or no damage to the vehicle. Although this is a very complex area, we can think of the
relationship between vehicle damage and the forces the car’s occupants are exposed
to as being either elastic in nature
or plastic in nature. As simple examples,
consider collisions between billiard balls and collisions between empty milk
cartons. When one billiard ball strikes another, the struck ball is suddenly
accelerated. There is no deformation or crush of either ball, and most of the
energy going into the collision is expressed as motion in the struck ball. This
is an example of an elastic collision. Now take the example of two empty milk cartons. If they
collide with sufficient force, they crush like accordions. In this plastic collision, much of the energy
going into the collision is dissipated or absorbed by the deforming milk
cartons. In a similar way, when your car is struck at a speed that is not
sufficient to cause structural (crush) damage to the bumper, frame, and sheet
metal parts, much of that crash energy is transferred to you directly,
resulting in the type of rapid motion (whiplash) that can cause injury. How
much energy? A small car (1900 lb) striking at a speed of 12 mph has 9,180 ft
lb of energy. A larger car (4200 lb) at that collision speed delivers 20,294 ft
lb of energy! Conversely, when there is
damage to the car, it indicates that the energy that it took to cause that
damage was used up in the crash and not transferred
to the occupants. Although it seems intuitively backward, this inverse
relationship is, nevertheless, real and well known by crash researchers.
However, despite that, insurance companies commonly leverage the fact that most
jurors will not understand this relationship and will instead assume that no
damage to the vehicle can only mean that no injury would likely have occurred. The insurance companies have coined a private and rather
cynical little epigram for this: No
crash, no cash. It means, essentially, that if there is no structural damage
to your car, they will pretend not to believe that you could have been injured.
But they do really know about this plastic vs. elastic collision relationship,
because, when there is crush damage
to the car, they point that out and argue that injuries would not have resulted
because the energy of the crash would have been absorbed! In truth, of course,
you can be injured whether permanent vehicle damage is visible or not. There is
no simple way to equate this damage to the occupant’s injury potential. In fact, when we try to statistically compare vehicle damage
to patient outcomes (that is, how well patients recover from their injuries),
we find that there is no correlation. That is also true when we try to
determine whether or not the occupant would have been injured, based on the
amount of vehicle property damage to his car. This inability to relate property
damage to injury potential or outcome has been demonstrated in scientific research
in several different studies: it just can’t be done. This is probably not surprising to most of us, since we’ve
all known of someone who was riding in a car which crashed, killing one
occupant, while leaving the other with only scratches. Yet both were exposed to
the same vehicle crash forces. If we cannot predict who will live and who will
die in those severe crashes, it seems sensible that we also cannot predict
which occupants will be injured in less severe crashes. Ultimately, only a
trained and qualified doctor, such as the one who gave you this booklet, can
determine the extent of your injuries. Whether or not it was likely that you would have been injured
becomes a subject for academic debate. Risk FactorsDespite the fact that it is not possible to predict who will
be injured in these low speed crashes, research has provided some insight into
certain risk factors which, when present, do allow us to better predict outcome
in the event of an injury. Such risk factors include rear direction impact,
prior neck pain or headaches, prior similar injury, advancing age, having your
head turned at the time of impact, being unaware that the crash was about to
happen, poor position in the car seat (e.g., being turned or bent forward),
poor head restraint position or no restraint, crash speed under 10 mph,
collision with a vehicle larger than yours, front seat position, second
impacts, using the seat belt and shoulder harness, and being slight of build. The last two might surprise you. There’s no question,
however, that, although seat belts and shoulder harnesses definitely help to
prevent serious injury or death in higher speed crashes, they also increase your chances for neck and back
injury in lower speed rear impact crashes. Nevertheless, you should always wear
your safety belts when driving: Many fatal
crashes occur at speeds as low as 25 mph. As for being slight of build, the
increased risk results from the higher acceleration that those of slight build
are subjected to in crashes (nearly two times as much as heavier persons).
Don’t be alarmed if some of these risk factors apply to you. Your chances of a
good recovery will be enhanced when you take an active role in your therapy. Risk for Acute Injurya) Female
gender. [1],[2],[3],[4],[5],[6],[7],[8],[9],[10],[11],[12] b) History
of neck injury. [13] c) Poor
head restraint geometry/tall occupant (e.g. > 80th percentile male). [14],[15] d) Rear
impact (vs. other impact vectors). [16],[17],[18],[19],[20],[21],[22],[23],[24],[25],[26],[27],[28],[29],[30],[31],[32] e) Use
of seat belt shoulder harness (i.e., standard three-point restraints). [33],[34],[35],[36],[37],[38],[39],[40],[41],[42],[43],[44],[45],[46],[47] f)
Body mass index/head neck index (i.e. decreased risk
with increasing mass and neck size). [48],[49] g) Out
of position occupant (e.g., leaning forward/slumped) [50],[51],[52],[53],[54],[55],[56] h) Non-failure
of seat back. [57], [58],[59] i)
Having the head turned at impact. [60] j)
Non-awareness of impending impact. [61],[62],[63] k) Increasing
age (i.e. middle age and beyond). [64],[65],[66],[67],[68] l)
Impact by vehicle of greater mass (i.e. >25%
greater). [69],[70],[71] m) Crash
speed under 10mph. [72] Risk for Late Whiplash Syndromea)
Female gender. b)
Body mass index in females only. c)
Immediate/early onset of symptoms (i.e., within 12
hours) and/or severe initial symptoms d)
Ligamentous instability. e)
Initial back pain. f)
Greater subjective cognitive impairment. g)
Greater number of initial symptoms. h)
Use of seat belt/shoulder harness. For neck (not back)
pain. (non-use has a
protective effect.) i)
Initial physical findings of limited range of
motion. j)
Initial neurological symptoms. k)
Past history of neck pain or headache. l)
Initial degenerative changes seen on radiographs. m)
A loss of, or reversal of the cervical lordosis
(curve). n)
Increasing age (i.e., middle age and beyond) o)
Front seat position Common Complaints in PTHA Patients:1. Headache. 82.9% 2. Irritability. 66.7% 3. Insomnia. 63.2% 4. Anxiety. 58.1% 5. Memory problems. 57.3% 6. Other pain 56.4% 7. Concentration
problems. 52.1% 8. Depression. 52.1% 9. Dizziness. 41.1% 10. Confusion.
41.1% 11.
No control of emotions. 36.8% 12.
Loss of libido. 35.0% 13.
Tinnitus. 29.1% 14.
Can't carry out plans. 29.1% 15.
Can't plan. 28.4% 16.
Flashbacks. 28.2% 17.
Don't enjoy sex. 26.5% 18.
Nightmares. 26.5% 19.
Arithmetic problems. 17.9% 1. Light-headedness. 2.
Vertigo/dizziness. 3. Neck pain. 4. Headache. 5. Photophobia. 6. Phonophobia. 7. Tinnitus. 8. Impaired memory. 9. Easy
distractibility. 10. Impaired comprehension. 11. Forgetfulness. 12. Impaired logical thought. 13. Difficulty with new or abstract concepts. 14. Insomnia. 15. Easy fatigability. 16. Apathy. 17. Outbursts of anger. 18. Mood swings. 19. Depression. 20. Loss of libido. 21. Personality change. 22. Intolerance to alcohol. Cervical Acceleration/Deceleration Syndrome (CAD Syndrome):This syndrome is characterized by the following symptoms: [73] a)
Neck pain and stiffness. b)
Shoulder pain. c)
Upper back pain. d)
Suboccipital (or frontal) headache. e)
Diffuse pain and/or paresthesiae in upper extremities. f)
Mild and often non-dermatomal sensory abnormalities in
the upper and lower extremities. g)
Scapular and interscapular pain. h)
Development of trigger points in neck/upper back. i)
Lower back pain and sciatica. The Statistics of WhiplashThe real numbers are staggering, and underscore the magnitude
of this huge public health problem. Each year, about three million people
experience whiplash neck and back injury. That’s about half of all who are
actually exposed to such crashes. Of
these three million people, about 1.5 million will eventually fully recover.
About 600,000 will continue to have long-term symptoms, and an additional
150,000 will actually become disabled each year as a result of whiplash injury. To put it another way, a person in a car that is struck from
the rear stands about a 50% chance of being injured. If injured, he stands
about a 50% chance of having long-term pain or other complaints. And this
tragic human wreckage increases every year, so the number of whiplash chronic
pain sufferers is always growing. In fact, our research shows that, today,
nearly half (45%) of all Americans
with chronic neck pain attribute it to car crashes, with whiplash being the
most common form. Whiplash truly has reached epidemic proportions. I report these figures, of course, at the risk of frightening
some injured persons and, according to some of my colleagues, at the risk of
causing some patients to develop chronic pain merely out of expectation and
fear. Nevertheless, I have always been a firm believer that patients have a
right to know the truth about their condition. Doctors who paint
unrealistically favorable pictures of outcome or candy coat the truth, in my
opinion, provide a disservice to their patients. In fact, patients who harbor
overly optimistic expectations about outcome rarely follow their doctor’s
advice well. As a result, they frequently are disappointed with their outcome
and this may also be cause for some resentment. On the other hand, after many
years of specializing in this type of trauma, chiropractic physicians have learned
how to treat it successfully, and most haven’t found that being honest with
patients has hindered them at all. Having said all of that, there is some light at the end of
the tunnel. For one thing, the statistics I mentioned earlier are for patients
treated by all health care providers and, in some cases, by none. Your doctor
has the special tools and knowledge needed to provide the best chance that you
will recover 100% from your injuries. Moreover, he has probably subscribed to
the methods of treatment I have taught for years and may even have been trained
by me. And, in a recent study, chiropractic care was shown to be able to cure
94% of chronic whiplash cases that were referred from the offices of several
orthopaedic surgeons. Therefore, your risk
of poor outcome is probably not as grim as that of a general population of
whiplash patients who never see a chiropractic physician. Why Did You Get Hurt?The entire phenomenon of whiplash is really a series of
examples of the so-called Murphy’s Law, which essentially holds that anything
that can go wrong, will go wrong, and at the worst possible moment. In the case
of whiplash, there are several places where this occurs. The easiest way to
discuss the mechanics of whiplash is to break it into a series of four phases.
And, by the way, if this doesn’t interest you, feel free to skip to the next
section. Phase 1When your car is struck from the rear, it suddenly moves
forward underneath you. After all, you’re not physically attached to your car,
you are simply sitting in it. An analogy would be a paperweight resting on a
piece of paper on your desk. When you pull rapidly on the paper, the
paperweight tends to remain in its original position and so moves relative to
the paper, not necessarily with it in lock step. As the car moves forward, the back of the seat strikes you
first in your lower back and buttock area. This causes the seat back to bend
rearward somewhat and, in some cases, to bend permanently or even break. (If
that happens, by the way, make sure you mention it to your doctor.) As the seat back begins to accelerate your torso forward,
your head moves rearward, since nothing strikes it directly and prevents this
motion. In actuality, it is really moving forward with respect to the earth,
but, since the torso moves forward more violently at first, the head moves
backward with respect to the torso. If you have well designed and well
positioned head restraints (although few of us do), your head may make early
contact with the restraint and this will limit the amount of distance your head
can move in the rearward direction. However, most of the damage to the neck and
spine occurs so quickly that head restraints have been shown to reduce injuries
only in 11-20% of the cases. During this phase the curves of the spine straighten
temporarily, high shear strains develop in the neck and brain stem, and high
pressure gradients develop in the brain. See Figure 1. Figure 1. Phase 1 of the whiplash phenomenon. As the car
lunges forward, the occupant is forced rearward into the seat back. Phase 2When your body loads the seat back initially, it tends to
climb up the seat back a few inches. We refer to this phenomenon as ramping. The straightening of the
spinal curves contributes to this vertical rise and results in compression of
the spine. In recent crash tests, even at crash speeds of under 10 mph, these
two effects, combined, resulted in a vertical motion of the head of up to 3 1/2 inches. The
volunteers’ heads moved up and over the head restraint, striking it from the
top and driving it down as a hammer drives in a nail. As a result, the head
restraint failed to prevent rearward head motion and actually acted as a
fulcrum, allowing greater bending of the neck and increasing the risk of injury[A].
See Figure 2. Figure 2. Phase 2 of the whiplash phenomenon. As the car continues to
move forward, the head and neck are forced rearward. Phase 2 is also where the first two elements of Murphy’s Law
enter the picture. Usually, these collisions involve a struck vehicle (yours,
perhaps) which is stopped. You have your foot on the brake pedal, exerting
just enough brake pedal pressure to prevent the car from rolling forward. When
a low speed crash occurs, your body will be thrust about 4-6 inches back into
the seat. When this occurs, of course, your foot will be drawn temporarily off
the brake. The car will then be free to accelerate unimpeded. If you had a
choice at that point, you’d want to prevent forward motion of the car. Imagine, in contrast, that your car was embedded in solid
concrete up to the wheel wells so that it could not move at all. When it was
struck from the rear, all that would happen would be some crushing of the rear
part of the car. It would not move forward, and you would not be accelerated.
You would, thus, not experience any whiplash injury. The second component of Murphy’s Law comes into play when
the seat back, which has been bent back by the weight of your torso moving into
it, suddenly releases that stored energy, much like a diving board springs
upward after you load it with your weight. Unfortunately, this forward seat back recoil occurs at the
very moment that your head is moving backward.
This results in a shear force that is directed through the neck and is one
of the more damaging aspects of this type of crash. It also propels your torso
forward with greater force. At this point we are beginning phase 3. Phase 3In this phase your body is moving forward in the seat. Your torso
is now descending back down the seat back and your head and neck are at their
peak acceleration. Meanwhile, the car’s acceleration is tapering off, although
it may continue to roll forward. The elastic recoil of the seat back continues. The risk of forward
motion of the car at this point is that it may strike the car in front of it.
This will result in a further abrupt deceleration force, increasing the risk of
injury. See Figure 3. As you recall, the early researchers discovered that the
occupant’s head would experience acceleration forces greater than those of the
vehicle itself. This is due, in large part, to the diving board-like effect, or
springiness, of the seat back. In physics we refer to this as the coefficient of restitution. The car also
possesses a degree of springiness, because at low speeds our cars are
relatively stiff and resist crush. In fact, most passenger cars on the road
today can resist crush damage at crash speeds of 10-15 mph when the two
crashing cars are perfectly aligned and the bumper contact is near 100%. Finally, the combined effects of this vehicle springiness,
the elasticity of the human neck, and the rebound of the head, in conjunction
with muscular contraction, conspire to produce the higher occupant acceleration
forces seen in experimental crashes. Of course, higher acceleration forces
generally equate to a greater potential for injury. Figure 3. Phase 3 of the whiplash phenomenon. Now the occupant is
thrown forward at a greater acceleration and velocity than the car itself During phase 3, you are accelerating forward in the car
seat. Since the initial motion (phases 1 and 2) was rearward into the seat
back, some slack probably developed in the seat belt and shoulder harness
webbing. As your body moves forward now in phase 3, this slack will be drawn
up. Slack at this time is a disadvantage, however, because the more forward
movement is allowed by this slack, the greater speed you will attain relative
to the car. Then, when you reach the extent of that webbing slack in phase 4,
your deceleration, or stopping force, will be that much greater (i.e., more
abrupt). Again, it helps to use an analogy to appreciate this effect. If you were suspended in air a few inches above a swing seat
in a playground, and suddenly dropped into the seat, the forces on your body
would be abrupt, but bearable. On the other hand, if you were suspended a
couple of feet above the seat and suddenly dropped into it, the forces would be
much more abrupt—and painful! In both cases on the swing, you are actually
accelerating (downward) at 1 g (the letter g is actually derived from gravity,
and is the acceleration exerted by earth’s gravity: 32.2 ft/sec/see). But,
since acceleration describes the rate of change of velocity, it means that the
longer you accelerate, the faster you get going. So, in the car seat, it would
actually be an advantage to have no slack in the restraint webbing. Phase 4In this fourth and final phase, your torso comes into
contact with the restraint webbing (seat belt and shoulder harness) and your
head’s inertia allows it to move forward unimpeded. This then results in a
violent forward bending motion of your neck, which is another one of the
potentially injurious forces in whiplash injury. Here is yet another instance of
Murphy’s Law: As your body moves forward in the seat, your foot, which
initially may have been resting on the brake pedal and come off during phase 1
allowing greater acceleration—is now forced back onto the pedal. This results
in a further abrupt deceleration just when you need it least. In other words,
it would be best at this point to allow the car to roll forward unimpeded,
rather than to reapply the brakes. See Figure 4. To use our swing set analogy, if the swing was suspended by
elastic bungee cords, instead of non-yielding chain, when we plopped into the
swing seat, our deceleration would be less abrupt. In the same way, if the car
could roll forward unimpeded, our deceleration would likewise be less
abrupt. In this phase the occupant
experiences high spinal tension and shear, as well as high brain stem, spinal
cord, and nerve root tension. Figure 4. Phase 4 of the whiplash phenomenon. The head and
neck continue forward as the torso decelerates against the safety belts. What Happens To the Head and Spine?The human brain is a very soft structure, suspended in a
fluid called cerebrospinal fluid. When the head is subjected to rapid
acceleration, followed by a rapid deceleration (i.e., the quick back and forth
movement of the head), pressure gradients develop within the brain which
reverse rapidly when the direction of the head reverses. This results in
significant mechanical deformation of brain tissue and frequently results in a
form of brain injury referred to as mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI). In some
cases, patients temporarily lose consciousness and have symptoms of a mild
concussion. More often, there is no loss of consciousness, but patients
complain of mild confusion or disorientation just after the crash. Due to the high degree of shear experienced in many cases,
the brain stem (the part connecting the brain with the spinal cord) may be
injured. See Figure 5. Figure 5. High pressure gradients develop within the brain
during the violent and rapid back and forth motion of the head during whiplash.
The brain stem is labeled bs. The structures of the spine are also frequently injured
during the four phases of whiplash. These include the spinal joints (known as
facet joints), the discs, ligaments, tendons, and muscles. Spinal cord injury
may also occur, as can injury to spinal nerves as they exit from the spine. See
Figure 6. We’ll discuss these injuries in more detail later. In addition to neck pain, about 4000of all whiplash victims will
experience back pain following whiplash injury. In fact, our research found
that of all Americans with low back pain, 17% of males, and 29% of females
attributed it to motor vehicle crashes. While the precise mechanism of this
form of injury is less clear, it is likely that it results from the initial
loading of the seat back and the subsequent forward bending around the seat
belt. Just about all of the typical symptoms experienced by patients after
whiplash can be explained by the injury mechanisms mentioned in this section. Figure 6. This is an illustration of part of the cervical
spine (black portion of inset). Part is cut in half for better viewing. This
illustrates all of the injuries that have been reported to occur in whiplash
trauma. (Naturally, it is unlikely that all will be present in any one person.) Injuries That Result From Whiplash Trauma There are many reasons why whiplash injuries have gained an
ill-deserved reputation in some circles. Perhaps foremost among these is the
inability of many physicians to comprehend the nature of the trauma and the
resulting soft tissue injuries that result. Another is the adversarial
relationship that frequently develops between responsible parties and injured
victims. These contentious relationships have, unfortunately, spawned a growing
collection of junk science and misleading editorial literature which has served
only to confuse the issues further, while providing unjustified fuel for the
ongoing controversy. At the same time, there exists a much larger body of
scientific literature which has better defined the true nature and range of
these injuries. In fact, I have written entire textbooks on the subject, and
they are comprehensively referenced with scientific work. Thus, the controversy is entirely manufactured,
and at the expense of the injured victims of whiplash. You can be confident
that the facts discussed in this booklet are very well grounded in science. Brain injuryBelieve it or not, brain injury, usually a minor variety, is
rather common following whiplash injury, due to the mechanical deformation of
the brain during the four phases mentioned earlier. After the initial injury, a
cascade of biochemical reactions continue to injure the brain for up to 96
hours. These involve the formation of oxygen free radicals and other toxic
biochemical reactions that are well beyond the scope of this booklet. The
result, however, is commonly experienced as mild confusion, difficulty in
concentration, sleep disturbances, irritability, forgetfulness, outbursts of
anger, mood disorders, loss of libido (sex drive), and other psychological
effects which have commonly been used to suggest that the hapless victim is,
instead, mentally or psychologically unstable and, therefore, fabricating or
imagining most or all of his other symptoms. Unfortunately, this is a common
ploy by the defense in cases that are brought to trial. Studies have also shown that significant pain itself can
have a temporary adverse effect on a patient’s psychological and cognitive
(i.e., mental) status. There is also a well known association between
depression and chronic pain: Persons with chronic pain are much more likely to
become depressed. [B] Cranial nerve injury In addition to the type of brain injury
that causes cognitive difficulties, cranial nerves can sometimes be injured.
These are nerves that exit directly from the brain. Some are sensory only, such
as the 1st cranial nerve which provides the sense of smell. Others
are motor, such as the ones that control eye movements. Still others have both
sensory and motor function. Together these nerves sense or control vision,
taste, hearing, movements of the jaw and tongue, sensation on the head, muscles
of facial expression, and certain movements of the shoulders and neck, in
addition to the other faculties mentioned. Many complaints are related to
injuries to these nerves. Some patients, for example, complain of blurred
vision after a whiplash injury. This results from an accommodation error in the
eye, which adversely affects pupillary dilation and is manifested as mild
visual acuity problems (blurred vision). Many eye doctors do not realize that
such problems occur after whiplash and will attempt, instead, to refract these
patients i.e., test their vision using conventional ophthalmology/optometry
procedures. However, most types of vision impairment that are amenable to
refractive correction (near- and farsightedness; astigmatism) are due to
actual abnormalities in the shape of the outer portion (cornea) of the eye.
Corrective lenses will help these conditions. Accommodation is dependent upon
the ability to change the size of the pupil. This takes place inside the eye. Abnormalities in this
function are the result of trauma to the nerves controlling the iris. As a
result, corrective lenses cannot remedy this type of blurred vision. Other visual problems are the result of a loss of normal
motor control of the eyes. These are usually the result of injury to one of the
three cranial nerves controlling eye motion. These injuries can also manifest
themselves as blurred vision. DizzinessAnother type of complaint that is fairly common is
dizziness. It is a sense of balance loss and must be distinguished from
vertigo, which is a rather more severe motion disorder, although the latter is
occasionally seen following whiplash trauma. Usually vertigo is the result of
an injury to the inner ear and goes by the name of benign paroxysmal positional
vertigo (BPPV). This condition is precipitated by certain motions of the head
and generally lasts only 15-20 seconds. There is a simple treatment for this
condition which your chiropractic physician can help you with. There are a few
other causes of vertigo. Most also involve the inner ear. Dizziness, on the other hand, often results from injury to
the joints of the cervical spine. It may also be the result of brain stem
injury or injury to the brain itself. Usually it is short lived and is
frequently also amenable to chiropractic treatment. Much work has been done
recently in the area of balance disorders resulting from whiplash. These may
also be effectively treated by chiropractic care. Hormonal problemsThe endocrine (hormonal) system may be affected by whiplash
injury because the part of the brain that controls part of this system (the
hypothalamus and the pituitary gland) may be injured during the rapid
acceleration and deceleration of the brain. A colleague and I published some
research a few years ago in which we found evidence for an as yet undescribed
form of hypothyroidism that is commonly found to develop in the months
following whiplash. Since the thyroid gland normally stores enough thyroid
hormone to maintain normal endocrine function for about four months, these
conditions do not typically show themselves until several months after an injury.
As a result, they are not usually attributed to the whiplash injury and are,
instead, considered coincidental. And this hypothesis is usually easy to accept
because hypothyroidism is a fairly common disorder. Symptoms include slowness in cognition (mental activity),
weight gain, fatigue, intolerance to cold, thickening and edema of skin,
puffiness of the hands and face, constipation, drowsiness, personality changes,
loss of hair from the eyebrows and scalp, and musculoskeletal pain. Changes in
menstrual flow are also common. Menstrual disorders are often seen following
whiplash trauma, and appear to have a similar endocrine connection, although
the exact mechanism is unclear. Your chiropractic or family physician with a
simple blood test can confirm hypothyroidism. HeadachesAfter neck pain, headaches are the most prevalent complaint
among those suffering from whiplash injury. While some headaches are actually
the result of direct brain injury, most are related to injury of the cervical
spine (the part of the spine that runs through the neck) and its connecting
structures. Many of the structures that are injured in this part of the spine
can cause pain to be referred into the head—a fact that has been confirmed in
several experimental studies over the years. As a result, your doctor will
treat headaches primarily by treating your neck and back. TMJ problemsWhile we are still in the head, a less common, but
troublesome, disorder that results from whiplash is temporomandibular joint
disorder (TMD). It too may cause headaches, and is also associated with pain in
and around the jaw joint, just in front of the ear. Clicking and popping noises
in this joint are found in about 40-50% of the normal population and, by themselves,
are not cause for alarm. However, new noises that arise after whiplash and are
associated with jaw joint pain should be evaluated immediately. Many
chiropractic physicians are specially trained to treat TMD. Neck painIt is the single most common complaint in whiplash trauma, being
reported by over 90% of patients. Studies have shown that most of the
structures in and around the spine are vulnerable to injury (see Figure 6), and
nearly all of them can cause neck pain. Often this pain radiates out across the
shoulders, up into the head, and down between the shoulder blades. And, because
the nerves that provide motor power (i.e., those that make the muscles move)
and convey sensory information (i.e., the sensations of touch, vibration,
position sense, and pain) exit from the spine, they may become inflamed,
irritated, or compressed by spinal injuries. When this happens, you may
experience weakness, clumsiness, tingling or numbness, or pain in your arms,
forearms, hands, or fingers. Low back painThis is another poorly understood result of whiplash trauma.
Many doctors—especially those working on behalf of insurance companies—dismiss
it as coincidental to whiplash because they fail to comprehend the causal
mechanism. Nevertheless, even the Insurance Research Council reports that it is
seen in 39% of cases of whiplash. Most other studies of whiplash patients also
report incidences of low back pain of 35-50% or more following whiplash trauma.
A colleague and I studied a variety of car crash types and found low back pain
in 57% of the rear impact collisions in which injury was reported, and 71% of
the side impact crashes. Of interest was the fact that we found fewer neck
injuries in the side impact crashes, possibly because these people were more
often aware of the impending crash than those in rear impact crashes. Another
likely reason for this finding is that, in side impacts, your body will move in
a side-to-side direction. This allows the motion of the spine to be more
evenly distributed throughout the neck and torso portions of the spine. In
rear impact crashes, in contrast, the torso’s motion is limited by the seat
back and the shoulder harness, so most of the motion becomes concentrated in
the neck portion of the spine. There are other conditions and symptoms that sometimes result
from whiplash injury. We’ve merely discussed the most common of the
constellation of symptoms here. You should never assume that any condition is not related to the crash, merely because
it develops days, or even weeks later. Always report your new symptoms to your
doctor so that he can make the proper assessment of your condition. What If Your Symptoms Are Delayed?Actually, we more commonly see delays in the onset of symptoms than an immediate onset of symptoms.
This is very well supported in the clinical literature, although the reason
for it is not well understood. With most everyday minor bumps and bruises, we
expect to have pain as soon as we injure ourselves. When we sprain an ankle,
for example, it hurts right away. Why is it then that most victims of whiplash
injury experience no immediate pain? The most likely explanation is that it
takes the body 24-72 hours to develop inflammation. And, while inflammation has
four parts-swelling, redness, heat, and pain for the structures located deep
in the neck, pain is usually the only outward sign of inflammation. Yet, delayed pain is not really so foreign to us. We are all
familiar with the delayed inflammation of muscle which results from a bout of
strenuous exercise, such as beginning a new workout program at the gym. On the
day of the exercise, about the only effect we feel is fatigue after the
workout. The next day we might start to feel a little stiffness. By the third
day, our muscles are so sore it hurts to move them. The question of just how long a delay is reasonable is a
difficult one. In the case of inflammation secondary to injured tissues in the
neck, three days is the most common. On the other hand, disc injuries may be
quite occult and may smolder for weeks or months before becoming symptomatic.
And subtle joint injuries can gradually alter the normal biomechanics (motion)
of the spine over several weeks’, or even months’ time. This too can be a
source of neck pain or back pain or stiffness. This information provided for informational and educational purposes only. Not intended for commercial purposes.
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