Orem Chiropractor Car Accident Injury Whiplash Neck & Back Pain

A recent report states that car accidents cost over 99 billion annually and that about 50% of low impact accidents go unreported. Needless to say there is a lot at stake.

The question is can injury severity be associated with amount of car damage following a car accident? Meaning that if you are involved in a “minor” fender bender are your injuries going to be less than someone who has been involved a “major” accident.

To answer this question let’s review a study titled Risk factors for long term treatment of whiplash injury in Japan: Analysis of 400 cases by Hijioka, et al. (1) This is an important study because it answers to very important questions:

1. Does crash severity correlate with the risk for injury?
2. Does crash severity correlate with the severity of injury?

Researchers classified car damage on the basis of six grades:

Degree of Property Damage

Grade 0 No damage
Grade 1 Slight damage
Grade 2 Damage to bumper
Grade 3 1/3 of car damage
Grade 4 ½ of car damaged
Grade 5 Total destruction of car

Although this grading scheme is not described in detail, the type of damage described by Grade 1 most likely represents cosmetic damage, such as scuff marks, paint transfers, scratched paint, broken trim pieces or taillight lenses, etc. These types of crashes are often characterized as no damage accidents in the U.S. Thus, the first two grades (Grade 0 & Grade I) are the same as “no damage” crashes.

When the authors break down the 400 cases on the basis of damage alone, it turns out that a large number of the people (over 25%) were injured in the Grade 0 & Grade 1 categories, which is an interesting fact in light of the false idea that injuries are unlikely when there is no car damage.

In fact, if this were true we would expect few injuries in the first two categories and a increasing number of injuries as accidents severity increases. Instead, we see just the opposite. As damage increases, there are fewer people injured. The researchers also showed quite clearly that treatment duration – which is used to measure injury severity – also fails to follow a linear pattern. Meaning that as accident severity increases, we should see an increase in the amount of treatment. The researchers did not find this relationship. Thus, this study offers very compelling evidence that the “no damage – no injury” notion cannot be supported.

Orem chiropractor R. Ned McArthur, D.C. specializes in restoring your quality of health, increasing your well-being, and getting you pain free again.

Selecting an Orem chiropractor should be done on the basis of the services provided. One of the leading providers of chiropractic care in Orem, is Orem chiropractor - R. Ned McArthur, D.C. providing affordable and gentle chiropractic care.