Abstract
Chronic whiplash-associated disorder (WAD) is common after whiplash injury, with considerable personal, social, and economic burden. Despite decades of research, factors responsible for continuing pain and disability are largely unknown, and diagnostic tools are lacking. Here, we report a novel model of mechanical ventral neck muscle function recorded from non-invasive, real-time, ultrasound measurements. We calculated the deformation area and deformation rate in 23 individuals with persistent WAD and compared them to 23 sex- and age-matched controls. Multivariate statistics were used to analyse interactions between ventral neck muscles, revealing different interplay between muscles in individuals with WAD and healthy controls. Although the cause and effect relation cannot be established from this data, for the first time, we reveal a novel method capable of detecting different neck muscle interplay in people with WAD. This non-invasive method stands to make a major breakthrough in the assessment and diagnosis of people following a whiplash trauma.
Highlights
Chronic whiplash-associated disorder (WAD) is common after whiplash injury, with considerable personal, social, and economic burden
We recently reported that the deformation and deformation rate in three ventral neck muscles, the longus capitis (Lcap), longus colli (Lco) and sternocleidomastoid (SCM), in asymptomatic individuals reveal an individual linear relationship between muscles, but the relationship was weakened or missing in individuals with WAD27
A total of 24 variables were included in the Principal component analysis (PCA): total deformation area, elongation and shortening area, and deformation rate from the SCM, Lcap, and Lco during the first and tenth repetition of an arm elevation task (Fig. 1a)
Summary
Chronic whiplash-associated disorder (WAD) is common after whiplash injury, with considerable personal, social, and economic burden. The cause and effect relation cannot be established from this data, for the first time, we reveal a novel method capable of detecting different neck muscle interplay in people with WAD. This non-invasive method stands to make a major breakthrough in the assessment and diagnosis of people following a whiplash trauma. An alternative EMG approach involving a nasopharyngeal electrode was proposed[13] and utilised[12] to measure longus colli and longus capitis activity in people with neck pain this is an invasive approach and cannot be applied in routine practice This approach could not distinguish the activity between these two muscles. Recent progress in ultrasound imaging and analysis provide the possibility of investigating human mechanical musculoskeletal function[17,18] in real time, in vivo, and during functional activity, and can be used to develop new methods that improve diagnostics in WAD
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