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subject: St. Louis Park Chiropractor Discusses Auto Accident Whiplash Injury. [print this page]

Who gets whiplash injuries?

The short answer is that anyone can get a whiplash injury. But what's

surprising is that

1.you didn't have to be in a real bad accident to get a whiplash injury

2.and the amount of damage to your vehicle can be minimal, and you can

still be injured.

So, what are the risk factors for whiplash injury? What I mean by that

is what factors make it more likely that you'll suffer a whiplash injury if

you're in a motor vehicle accident?

Let's first understand what happens in whiplash injury. You're driving,

wearing your seat belt, and are suddenly impacted or impact another car.

Your car is jolted. Sometimes this means coming abruptly to a stop, or being

suddenly pushed forward or sideways.

With the sudden jolt to your car your body is also thrown about. When you've

got seat belts on, your body or torso remains fixed in the seat. Only your

head can move, because its not strapped in. With the impact of a collision

your head and neck experience a whipping action, not unlike cracking a whip.

This all happens in a fraction of a second, so fast that you don't remember

it clearly.

Whether or not you sustain whiplash injury is dependent on many factors.

The first is how much whipping force did your head and neck experience.

It's common for people to assume that only high speed accidents can create

enough force to cause whiplash. But researchers find this to not be true.

One group of researchers state that 90% of all road-traffic collisions occur

at speeds less than 14 mph and that it is at these speeds that whiplash

occurs.

Another common misconception is that you couldn't have been injured if there

wasn't a lot of damage to your car. But researchers have shown that there is

little relationship between the amount of damage to the car and the amount of

injury sustained.

Listen to this quote by this very highly regarded researcher from Canada, Ian

McNab. Dr. McNab is a professor of surgery at the University of Toronto.

This quote was in his study published in a text entitled The Spine.

The amount of damage sustained by the car bears little relationship to the

force applied. To take an extreme example: If the car was struck in concrete,

the damage sustained might be very great but the occupants would not be

injured because the car could not move forward, whereas, on ice, the damage

to the car could be slight but the injuries sustained might be severe because

of the rapid accelerations permitted.

So even if your car didn't sustain a lot of damage, it doesn't mean that you

don't have a whiplash injury. And even if your collision was at a low speed,

you may still have sustained a whiplash injury.

For more information on whiplash, effective treatment of whiplash injury,

Minnesota No-Fault insurance, and attorneys who specialize in helping people

who have been in auto accidents please go to www.DocsPainRelief.com

Thank you for your attention, and be well.

by: Harlan Mittag

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