What is the mechanism of injury for whiplash?
The exact injury mechanism that causes whiplash injuries is forceful sudden hyperextension followed by hyperflexion of the cervical vertebrae, mainly spraining the nuchal ligament and the Anterior Longitudinal Ligament respectively.
What happens to muscles during whiplash?
Whiplash occurs when the muscles in your neck suffer a strain because of a rapid movement backward and then forward. The sudden motion causes your neck’s tendons and ligaments to stretch and tear, resulting in whiplash.
What structures are affected in whiplash?
Whiplash injury is poorly understood, but usually involves the muscles, discs, nerves, and tendons in your neck. It is caused by the neck bending forcibly forward and then backward, or vice versa. Many whiplash injuries occur if you are involved in a rear-end automobile collision.
What are the possible mechanisms of injury for a cervical strain?
Cervical injury can be a result of flexion, extension, rotation, contusion, and compression of the spinal cord.
What is the medical diagnosis for whiplash?
Diagnosis and Tests Healthcare providers can usually diagnose whiplash by examining your symptoms and asking you questions about your injury. CT scans or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can show details of damaged soft tissues (such as nerves or disks), though they may not always be required.
What is different about the mechanism of injury for a cervical dislocation versus a cervical fracture?
A cervical fracture means that a bone is broken in the cervical (neck) region of the spine. A cervical dislocation means that a ligament injury in the neck has occurred, and two (or more) of the adjoining spine bones have become abnormally separated from each other, causing instability.
What are the effects of whiplash?
Loss of range of motion in the neck. Headaches, most often starting at the base of the skull. Tenderness or pain in the shoulder, upper back or arms. Tingling or numbness in the arms.
What part of the brain is damaged in whiplash?
Without significant loss of consciousness and peritraumatic amnesia, brain damage does not occur. Brain regions that are exposed to damage following acceleration-deceleration trauma are the prefrontal cortex, which is crucial for the more complex attentional functioning.
What is the ICD 10 code for whiplash?
S13.4
Whiplash injury is classified as neck pain ICD-10 S13. 4. Whiplash is not life threatening but can cause partial disability for a while.
Is whiplash injury a diagnosis?
Whiplash is diagnosed by a clinician when the patient reports some type of neck pain in the aftermath of trauma capable of causing an acceleration-deceleration injury – most commonly a motor vehicle accident.
Is whiplash a differential diagnosis?
Differential Diagnosis Whiplash is an injury associated with trauma; remote trauma should dictate evaluation for other causes, such as mass, tumor, infection, etc.
How are biomechanical studies used to study Whiplash?
Biomechanical studies of whiplash injury have used human subjects, animals, cadavers, and mathematical models to investigate possible mechanisms of whiplash injury. The insights gained from these investigations have often been limited by our ignorance of the tissues responsible for the chronic pain suffered by whiplash patients.
Which is the primary mechanism of whiplash injury?
Penning postulated that the primary mechanism of whiplash injury is hyper-translation of the head as opposed to the more conventional view of hyper-exten- sion [11,12]. He studied lateral radiographs of “chin-in and chin-out” subjects as representative of posterior and anterior head translations.
How is the cervical spine affected by Whiplash?
We found a distinct bi-phasic kinematic response of the cervical spine to whiplash trauma. In the first phase, the spine formed an S-shaped curve with flexion at the upper levels and hyper-extension at the lower levels. In the second phase, all levels of the cervical spine were extended, and the head reached its maximum extension.
Are there any promising tissues for whiplash injury?
The insights gained from these investigations have often been limited by our ignorance of the tissues responsible for the chronic pain suffered by whiplash patients. Recent clinical research, however, has identified a promising candidate tissue for whiplash injury and has provided a new focus for research into the mechanics of whiplash injury.