Whiplash, Auto or Motor Vehicle Accident Spinal Soft Tissue Injuries
Injuries sustained while traveling at high rates of speed is a relatively new type of health problem never before seen on our planet till the invention of the auto at the beginning of the twentieth century.
If you fell off a high cliff and hit the bottom at 35 MPH… chances are you didn’t survive.
Seriously though, injuries sustained in motor vehicle accidents (MVA) are a public health problem. The costs are great: both economically, and personally. Not only are many people killed, yet many of those who do survive are left with lifelong impairments and disability of varied degrees. The patient(s) who continue to live with chronic varied degrees of pain, impairment and disability is a controversial topic unfortunately, due to the involvement of insurance companies, lawyers and money and doctors who fail to appreciate the nature of chronic pain.
There are many of you who continue to suffer with pain and disability as a result of auto accidents long after the event.
The physics of forces that come to bear on the occupants of colliding vehicles weighing approximately 2000 to 3500 pounds are tremendous. A head-on collision can create 5500lbs of force on a spine, an unsupported head and neck.
In this discussion I will focus on the soft tissue injuries most likely to result from the motor vehicle accident.
Strain/Sprain
Muscles are soft tissues(the meat of animals, fowl and fish we eat) that are attached at their tapered ends to tendons and ultimately bone and thus and move the skeletal system.
Muscles are like cloth in that they are both composed of tiny fibres, which when subjected to traumatic force may stretch increasingly and to the point they eventually fail and thus tear.
A muscle tear may be mild, moderate or severe. Symptoms will reflect the degree of injury, of course. Pain, spasm, swelling, hemorrhage and loss of active range of motion may be associated with various degrees of injury.
Similarly, ligaments which strap bone to bone and thus hold our skeletal frame together, are subject to forces which my strain and eventually cause tearing of structure,
Spinal discs are particularly vulnerable to rotary forces combined with compression or bending
Discs may tear, bulge, protrude and herniate. See section on discs for additional information including anatomy.