FAQ's - Personal Injuries

What does injury mean?

Answer:
The legal definition of Injury is any physical harm or it can also mean emotional harm. Awards can be made for damages for psychiatric illnesses, however small, as a consequence of your accident.

What is a whiplash injury?

Answer:
The term whiplash is when the soft tissue in the spine is stretched and strained after the body is thrown in a sudden, forceful movement. The injury most commonly occurs in vehicle accidents involving sudden deceleration or acceleration.

What is whiplash motion?

Answer:
Whiplash motion starts at the time of impact; the head is thrown backwards whilst the body moves forwards direction. This movement causes the muscles and ligaments of the joint get excessively straightened, known as hyperextension. The head may then get thrown forwards and the neck joint over-bends causing the chin to touch the chest. This forwards movement is called hyper flexion. This can cause further damage to the neck.

The processes can take approximately 1/5th of a second for hyperextension and hyper flexion occur and returning to the typical neck position. Most people think that whiplash occurs at high speed but research as shown that even a low speed car accident of no more than 8 mph, the head will move up to 40 centimetres in an extremely short period. Whiplash injury can occur in a very short amount of time in a vehicle accident.

The energy in the accident comes from the changing velocity of the vehicle the striking car decelerating and the struck car accelerating is transferred directly into the occupants. Creating a very fast movement with which whiplash-type injury associated with.

Whiplash movement, rarely damages the bones in the neck when it occurs. It is normally the neck muscles, joints and ligaments which suffer the effects of the whiplash-type injury and cause extreme discomfort. This is known as medically as soft tissue damage.

What is Whiplash-Associated Disorder?

Answer:
The term whiplash is a misunderstood term and it was only meant to describe the snapping action of the neck, rather than the neck injury itself. A study, known as the Quebec Task Force on Whiplash Associated Disorders (WADs), which looked into the whiplash motion and the resulting injuries, gave this definition to clarify the issue:

Whiplash is an acceleration-deceleration mechanism of energy transfer to the neck. It may result from rear end or side impact motor vehicle collisions, but can also occur during diving and other mishaps. The impact may result in soft-tissue injuries (whiplash injury); this in turn may lead to a variety of clinical manifestations (Whiplash Associated Disorders).

Whiplash Associated Disorders symptoms can include: neck pain, restricted neck movement, shoulder pain, tingling or heaviness in the arms, dizziness, tinnitus and pain down the legs.

What are the symptoms of whiplash?

Answer:
A range of symptoms can be experienced by people with whiplash injuries. Some symptoms are common to most whiplash patients, like as restricted neck movement, whilst others are shown by only a small minority with a Whiplash Associated Disorder (WAD).

What are the most common symptoms?

Answer:
The most common symptoms of Whiplash Associated Disorders are neck pain and a restriction in the movement of neck. These symptoms are felt by the majority of people reporting a whiplash-related neck injury. A study in United States and Australian found that facet joints are the cause of neck pain in over 50% in there study’s. The facet joints are covered with cartilage and a lubricating fluid, allowing the joint to rotate, but do not perform their job properly when damaged.

One of the most common symptoms of a neck injury caused by whiplash are headaches as reported by over 3/4 of people with a Whiplash Associated Disorders. These are known as cervicogenic headaches and occur as a result of damage to the cervical area between C1-C7 vertebrae. Damage to facet joint, cervical discs, and inflammation of nerve are all possible reasons for cervicogenic headaches.

Pains in the lumber region of the back can also occur after a whiplash-type injury. This is experienced by around half of whiplash injury sufferers lower back pain is normally caused by injury to discs, facet joints, and the sacroiliac joints.

Is there any less common symptoms?

Answer:
Yes tingling in the arms and fingers, pain and heaviness are all symptoms that can occur after a whiplash injury. These are less common symptoms and these are experienced by around quarter of people with Whiplash Associated Disorders. These symptoms can be caused by nerve inflammation as a result of a cervical disc damage.

Some people experience pain in the arms and shoulders, even if no injury can be identified in that area. Referred pain can be the cause, this is damage to the starting point of a nerve but the pain is felt at the site the nerve serves.

A small number people who have had a whiplash-type injury can suffer from the following problems: memory loss, depression, concentration, sleep loss, irritability, ringing in the ear (tinnitus) and sometime vision problems. These symptoms are generally considered to be caused by either pain, medication or rarely, a slight brain injury.

How do they diagnose Whiplash?

Answer:
Many people who had suffered a whiplash injury did not receive any treatment for their injury and found claiming compensation difficult. Due to whiplash injuries being dismissed as something suffered by hypochondriacs because they could not be seen on x-rays or identified by physical examination.

It can still be difficult to identify whiplash injury that someone has suffered. Whiplash is now a well-documented occurrence and the resulting neck injuries have been seen in many studies. This means that Whiplash Associated Disorders are now taken more seriously by doctors and it is easier to get whiplash compensation.

After a vehicle accident, anyone with a suspected whiplash-type injury will often visit an Accident and Emergency department or their own GP. The doctor will ask about the symptoms, the circumstances of the accident and will carry out a physical examination. If doctors suspect a possible neck fracture, an x-ray will be carried out immediately.

How do they Diagnose Whiplash Associated Disorders?

Answer:
If after 12 weeks the symptoms persist or are particularly painful, further exploration may be carried out. The patient could be sent for a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans, computed tomography (CT) scans, and electromyography are some of the techniques that are used to pinpoint a particular neck injury.

MRI scans use magnetism to visualise the tissues inside the body. They can be used to the benefit of whiplash patients to see injuries that include disc hernias, disc injuries, and nerve compression.

For more information call Injuries Direct on 0800 2800 979, alternatively fill out our Contact form an one of our advisers will get back to you.

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