Whiplash is the common name for neck sprains, such as
those caused by hyper extension/flexion injury to the cervical,
thoracic or lumbar spines. The injury is referred to as
"whiplash" due to the neck or back being thrown forwards and/or
backwards at a rapid speed. This may cause the fibres of the
neck muscles to tear, resulting in pain and often a decreased
range of movement. Whiplash and whiplash-associated disorders
(WAD) represent a range of injuries to the neck caused by or
related to a sudden distortion of the neck.
Whiplash is commonly associated with motor vehicle accidents, usually when the vehicle has been hit in the rear, however the injury can be sustained in many other ways, including falls from bicycles or horses.
Symptoms reported by sufferers include: pain and
aching to the neck and back, referred pain to
the shoulders, sensory disturbance (such as pins
and needles) to the arms & legs and headaches.
Symptoms can appear directly after the crash,
but often are not felt until days afterwards.
Whiplash is usually confined to the spinal cord
(neck to pubic bone), and the most common areas
of the spinal cord affected by whiplash are the
neck, and the mid-back (middle of the spine).
Reliably diagnosing a whiplash
injury or disorder is not
difficult for a trained doctor.
If a patient cannot achieve the
full motion, or has excessive
range of motion, or chronic
pain, the probable ultimate
cause is the whiplash motion.
Because whiplash may be
caused by damage to the soft
tissues of the spine (ex:
tearing of a disk), these
injuries often cannot be seen on
an X-ray machine, and an
alternative type of scanning
machine such as an MRI is used
instead. Certain severe injuries
caused by whiplash movement,
such as torn ligaments of the
head-neck-joint system (e.g. the
alar ligaments) cannot be
displayed with non-functional
imaging techniques. For showing
ligament damage functional
imaging is essential.