Citation

Nelson CL. Proc. Am. Assoc. Automot. Med. Annu. Conf. 1970; 14: 47-62.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1970, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Soft tissue flexion-extension injuries of the cervical spine continue to pose a diagnostic and therapeutic problem for the physician. The majority of patients with such injuries respond to conservative treatment and become asymptomatic, yet there is a significant number of patients that persist in having symptoms in spite of adequate conservative treatment. Statistical analysis of this group of patients has shown that many of these patients continue to be symptomatic in spite of conservative treatment and in spite of the settlement of litigation. It has been proposed and found that some of these patients will have soft tissue injuries of the cervical spine that will respond to surgical fusion. The problem has been the inability to diagnose the abnormality and the level of abnormality. This study represents a group of patients who were evaluated by the use of cineradiography and some of their operative findings. The difficulty in the evaluation of these patients, surgically, is that the exact proposed ligamentous abnormality could not be detected. The study was then taken to the laboratory and by utilizing cadaver specimens, the cineradiographic changes and division of various ligaments were noted. This paper will discuss abnormalities of the cervical spine noted after flexion and extension injuries and discuss the soft tissue determinance of cervical movement.