Whiplash

Whiplash & Chiropractic

By Frank M. Painter|July 26, 2011|Whiplash|

Whiplash & Chiropractic

SOURCE: The ACA News

Whiplash is an enigmatic injury. We spend billions of dollars each year to treat it. Yet many lawyers, legislators, and medical doctors deny its existence. It affects millions of people around the world, yet research is severely under-funded. It is a largely preventable injury, yet we do little to prevent it. Fortunately, times are changing as whiplash enters a new phase of research and understanding.

“We now have a completely new model of whiplash,” says Dr. Arthur Croft, researcher and co-author of the well-respected textbook, Whiplash Injuries: The Cervical Acceleration/Deceleration Syndrome. “Back in 1982, when I started practice, we had an extremely simplistic view of whiplash – you got hit from the rear; your head snapped back, which may have caused damage to ligaments, muscles, and tendons; your head snapped forward, which may have caused some additional damage; and then you had symptoms. We weren’t very sophisticated in terms of what we knew, because there hadn’t been much research.”

Researchers now believe that during a rear-end collision, the lower neck goes into hyperextension, while the upper goes into flexion. “That means the bottom and top parts of the neck are going in opposite directions during the initial phase of a whiplash, which forms the letter ‘S,'” explains ACA member Dan Murphy, DC, who teaches whiplash throughout the world, including a 120-hour certification course on spine trauma. “This sequence of events has been captured with cineradiography, which lets us look at the movement of each joint of the spine with motion x-ray. It’s remarkable what it shows-especially in the lower neck where people seem to have the most complaints and most findings on examination. In a 6.5g impact, for example, the motion between C7 and T1 is supposed to be about two degrees, but researchers are finding that the joint is moving about 20 degrees – or 10 times more than it is supposed to.”

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A Systematic Review of Chiropractic Management of Adults With Whiplash Associated Disorders

By Frank M. Painter|June 1, 2011|Evidence-based Medicine, Whiplash|

A Systematic Review of Chiropractic Management of Adults with Whiplash Associated Disorders: Recommendations for Advancing Evidence-based Practice and Research

The Chiro.Org Blog

SOURCE: Journal of the Academy of Chiropractic Orthopedists 2011 (Mar); 8 (1)

By: Lynn Shaw, Martin Descarreaux, Roland Bryans, Mireille Duranleau, Henri Marcoux, Brock Potter, Rick Ruegg, Robert Watkin, Eleanor White

The literature relevant to the treatment of Whiplash Associated Disorders (WAD) is extensive and heterogeneous.

Methods: A Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach was used to engage a chiropractic community of practice and stakeholders in a systematic Review to address a general question: ‘Does chiropractic management of WAD clients have an effect on improving health status?’ A systematic review of the empirical studies relevant to WAD interventions was conducted followed by a review of the evidence.

Results: The initial search identified 1155 articles. Ninety-two of the articles were retrieved, and 27 articles consistent with specific criteria of WAD intervention were analyzed in-depth. The best evidence supporting the chiropractic management of clients with WAD is reported. For the review identified ways to overcome gaps needed to inform clinical practice and culminated in the development of a proposed care model: The WAD-Plus Model.

Conclusions: There is a baseline of evidence that suggests chiropractic care improves the cervical range of motion (cROM) and pain in the management of WAD. However, the level of this evidence relevant to clinical practice remains low or draws on clinical consensus at this time. The WAD-Plus Model has implications for use by chiropractors and interdisciplinary professionals in the assessment and management of acute, sub-acute and chronic pain due to WAD. Furthermore, the WAD-Plus Model can be used in the future study of interventions and outcomes to advanced evidenced-based care in the management of WAD.

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Background

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25 Years of Whiplash Research

By Frank M. Painter|May 31, 2011|Research, Whiplash|

25 Years of Whiplash Research

The Chiro.Org Blog

SOURCE: The American Chiropractor ~ September 2010

An interview with Arthur Croft, D.C.

Dr. Croft is the Founding Director of the Spine Research Institute of San Diego. He has been actively engaged in whiplash research for the past twenty-five years and has co-authored a best-selling textbook on whiplash (Whiplash Injuries: the Cervical Acceleration/Deceleration Syndrome, 3rd edition, 2002) and temporomandibular joint disorders (Whiplash and Temporomandibular Disorders: an Interdisciplinary Approach to Case Management), along with several other books, textbook chapters, and over 320 professional papers. He was the original developer of the now widely used whiplash (WAD) grading system, as well as the widely adopted treatment guidelines. Dr. Croft wrote and produced the Emmy-nominated video Whiplash, and the most recent human subjects crash test DVD’s, Machine vs. Man I and II and is the only chiropractic physician to conduct ongoing, full scale human volunteer crash testing.

Dr. Croft is a biomechanist, a trauma epidemiologist, and chiropractic orthopaedist and lectures extensively in the United States and abroad. He serves on the editorial boards of several professional peer-reviewed chiropractic, medical, and engineering journals, including Spine, Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, SAE, JMPT, DC Tracts, Journal of Musculoskeletal Pain, Chiropractic Technique, and is a senior editor of the Journal of Whiplash-Related Disorders. He has served as faculty of University of California, San Diego, Southern California University of Health Sciences, Western States Chiropractic College, and New York Chiropractic College. In addition to his own research, Dr. Croft has contributed to several research steering committees and has participated in RAND projects, including the cervical spine manipulation study, and has served as a grant reviewer for the Foundation for Chiropractic Education and Research and the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Croft is also a certified accident reconstructionist (NUTI). He currently serves as a panelist on the International Whiplash Task Force. Dr. Croft’s focus is public health and injury prevention and he is very close to receiving his PhD in epidemiology.

In an interview with The American Chiropractor (TAC), Dr. Croft shares some of the wisdom his studies have distilled.

Dr. Croft, please tell our readers a bit about some of the things you have been able to discover regarding whiplash through research.

Croft: Most of the discoveries concerning the whiplash phenomenon have come from the eight years of human subject crash testing we’ve done at the Spine Research Institute of San Diego. In many cases, our findings have been new and innovative and, in other cases, they have served to support or extend previous research or theory. We’ve found, for example, that occupant kinematics and biomechanics is much more complicated than previously thought and that smaller persons and larger persons have very different responses. [1] A small female will experience two to four times the head linear acceleration as a larger male in the same crash. The male, however, will experience greater rearward bending. (more…)

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Whiplash, aka Cervical Acceleration – Deceleration Injury, aka, Whiplash – Associated Disorder

By Frank M. Painter|January 1, 2011|Education, Whiplash|

Whiplash, aka Cervical Acceleration – Deceleration Injury, aka, Whiplash – Associated Disorder

The Chiro.Org Blog

A rose by any other name can still be a thorny experience for our patients, no matter what you call it.

Chiropractic care is very effective at reducing the pain, and for promoting healing, following a whiplash injury. The Whiplash Page combines primary literature sources with journal abstracts to review all aspects of whiplash injury and recovery. (more…)

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