Most everyone has been in a car accident in their lives, whether it is a small fender bender or more serious ones leaving you with disabilities. Even small fender benders can cause hidden injuries that can develop into pain, headaches, and arthritis. Even worse, most people who have been involved in an auto accident may not even know that they’ve been hurt. Symptoms can be felt usually days after the accident and may worsen thereafter if treatment is not started immediately. Some symptoms may include:
- Whiplash
- Sprains and Strains
- Shoulder and Neck Pain
- Headaches
- Numbness
- Dizziness & Vertigo
- Low back Pain
- Pain in Legs or Arms
- Car Seat-belt Injury
Injury to the neck, or whiplash, is a common car accident injury that can happen at the slowest of speeds and results from the vehicle coming to an abrupt stop while the body stays in motion. The seatbelt halts the body’s movement, but the neck snaps forward and back in response. The rest of the spine is involved in whiplash by being forced into a momentary irregular S-shape, pushing the lower spine out of its normal C-shaped position. The result is instant trauma to ligaments and spinal discs. The sudden and extreme back-and-forth motion of whiplash can injure the cervical facet joints, causing inflammation and irritation of the nerves in the brain stem and spinal cord.
Since it only a moment to experience whiplash, the effects can be painful and long lasting. Tension headaches are consistent in nearly 80% of whiplash sufferers, as well as tightened muscles, tenderness and pain that radiates into the shoulders and down the back. Three main types of headaches are migraine (vascular), muscle contraction headaches and cluster headaches. The first two types are more commonly seen in MVA (motor vehicle accidents). Researchers have shown that vascular (migraine-type) and muscle-contraction headache sufferers do have musculoskeletal abnormalities in their neck as compared to non-headache sufferers. (Kidd, R. Musculoskeletal dysfunction of the neck in migraine and tension headache. Headache. 1993; Nov/Dec: 566-569; Kunkel, R. Headache and the neck. Pain Management. 1990; March/April: 119-123.) Muscle-contraction headaches often are characteristic of restriction and pressure at the back and sides of the neck causing pain in the neck, temples and over the eyes. Trigger points are consistent in various muscles in the neck and face, notably found in the trapezius muscle, sternocleidomastoid, and levator scapulae muscles.
The chest cavity and the organs it protects are also susceptible to injury in a car crash. Bruising of internal organs might not show itself in external symptoms. Other areas likely to be injured in a traffic collision are the knees, which can suffer damage if they are forced into the steering column or dashboard. The ankles are also a weak point that can suffer injury when seats move due to collision force or the interior cavity caves in.
Spinal injuries are the most common injury reported in vehicle collisions, aside from head injuries which account for nearly 50% of all car crash-related injuries. In car crashes involving speeds over 72 km/h, some trauma or injury to the spine is most common. The tremendous, instant force of most car crashes rocks the body, jolting the frame forward and backward, and from side to side. The spine absorbs a great majority of the impact involved in any vehicle collision, and injuries can range from dislocation and bruising of ligaments and muscles to actual broken vertebrae.
A study to determine how the effect of car accidents on live and dead pigs was done in Sweden, during the 1970’s. Specifically experimenting on the thoracic tolerance in living and dead pigs using safety seat belts in head-on collisions. The researchers found that laceration of intra-thoracic blood vessels was seen in dead pigs while isolated heart lesions were seen only in living animals. “The main cause of these differences in tolerance level seems to be post mortem changes of the mechanical properties of the different tissues.” Since it had been questioned if cadavers constitute adequate test specimens for study of thoracic tolerances, there was a significant difference in the results of types of injuries between the dead tissue injuries compared to the vascular changes affected to living tissues during a traumatic shock to the body.
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