Whiplash is the common disorder that occurs from many auto accidents each year. Some 300 out of 100k people can be affected by it, which of course is a great deal of people. Even here in Lacey, whiplash incidents are high and early intervention with the injury is best.
Studies have shown that whiplash occurs more so when the backrest is not in line with the head, ie it’s set further back or not there at all. The head rest is a vital component in a crash as it stops the head from flipping even further backwards, extending the whiplash effect and causing more injury.
Moreover, as you may imagine, people whose necks tend to be thinner, are at greater risk of injury through whiplash. This could explain why women tend to be more affected by whiplash injuries than men. This is one reason why keeping fit and working on building up neck muscles to be strong is important as this can reduce the whiplash effect in an accident.
Studies have even looked at the possibility of seat belts increasing the effect of whiplash. However, even if it was conclusively proven that the chances of whiplash are greater with a seat belt on, obviously seat belts save more lives. It’s better to be alive with whiplash than not without.
Whiplash injuries can lead to time off work sick. This increases if work is of a more physical nature. Severe injuries could see up to 25 days lost with more minor injuries seeing up to 10 days off. One study looking at this saw that a third of cases didn’t take any time off work while half took around 4 days off and the rest going back within 30 days off. Nearly 5% still hadn’t returned after 12 weeks off.
At Warwick Chiropractic here in Lacey, Washington, we look after accident victims. We have many years experience healing whiplash injuries and helping people return to normal. We have even prepared a book for you to download and keep free of charge to give great tips and advice with an auto accident. You can download it here.
In the meantime, if you’ve suffered an injury, come in and we can examine you. Hopefully you have already been to ER to ensure there is no major damage, but we can certainly take care of the soft tissue injuries such as whiplash.
