Whiplash Treatment

Whiplash is neck pain following an acceleration-deceleration force causing an injury to the soft tissues of your neck’s ligaments, tendons, and muscles. It is caused by an abnormal force applied to the neck that causes it to move beyond its range. Whiplash often occurs after a car or motorcycle incident, sports activities, accidents, assaults, repetitive stress injuries, and chronic strain.

Its symptoms are the following: neck pain, neck swelling, tenderness along the back of the neck, muscle spasms, headache, pain along the neck to the shoulders, and difficulty to move neck around. Though whiplash is not a life-threatening injury, it can still lead to a prolonged period of partial disability. There are some who recover from whiplash without any medical help but there are some who experience it long after it has happened. This is termed as chronic whiplash or late whiplash syndrome.

Treatments for whiplash vary depending on the type of injury one has, whether it’s acute whiplash or chronic whiplash. Different chiropractic treatments address the injury such as manipulation, muscle relaxation or stimulation, McKenzie exercises, and/or stabilization or sensorimotor activities.

Manipulation is considered to be the most effective whiplash treatment. In this procedure, the spine is manipulated manually in order to re-establish the normal position of the spine vertebrae which would also realign muscles, tendons, and ligaments. One gently move the involved joint of the spine into the direction in which it was restricted. This can be done with a short thrust or a slow mobilizing movement.

Muscle relaxation on the other hand, is a whiplash treatment that involves gentle stretches to the muscle that has extensive tensions. It can also be done with repeating contractions to the affected muscle. Gentle finger pressure techniques may also be applied to trigger points in order to relieve the pain in the affected muscle areas.

McKenzie exercises are exercises designed to reduce the risk of disc derangement in the spine. After a while, a patient can do these exercises at home allowing them to take an active role in their whiplash treatment. Stabilization and sensorimotor activities on the other hand is more of a lifestyle change which seeks to correct the movement patterns in your daily routine. This will train your nervous system’s coordination and control on your movement patterns. It will also improve the ability of your neck to maintain stability.

Ergonomic and lifestyle changes will seek to improve the performance of your everyday activities without straining the body too much. It will seek to make your movements more efficient as you can produce the same amount of work while less stress on the body is applied.

These treatments for whiplash will help you avoid chronic whiplash.