Whiplash (medicine)

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Please see the discussion on the [spine, often the result of a rear-end collision between cars or trucks. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety defines whiplash as: "a range of neck injuries that are related to sudden distortions of the neck."

The consequences of whiplash range from mild pain for a few days, to severe disability caused by restricted head movement or instability of the cervical spine, sometimes with persistent pain.

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, the probable ultimate cause is the whiplash motion.

A rising percentage of car accidents result in a refund claim based on whiplash. This is partly due to an increased awareness, and it has consistently been found that few false claims are raised.

Four grades of Whiplash-Associated Disorder were defined by Quebec Task Force :

Grade 1: complaints of neck pain, stiffness or tenderness only but no physical signs are by the examining physician.
Grade 2: neck complaints and the examining physician finds decreased range of motion and point tenderness in the neck.
Grade 3: decreased range of motion plus neurological signs such as decreased deep tendon reflexes, weakness, insomnia and sensory deficits.
Grade 4: neck complaints and fracture or dislocation, or injury to the spinal cord.

Symptoms reported by sufferers include: ringing or whistling in the ear, headache, deafness, memory loss, dizziness, depression, jaw joint pain and difficulty in swallowing.

It takes about 100 milliseconds for your body to catch up to the car when it is hit, and this it is during this time that you suffer the damage.

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