172. Symptoms and Courses of Whiplash Injuries, especially of their Physico-Electrical Findings

Neurologia medico-chirurgica1967Vol. 9, pp. 210b–211

Abstract

Headache is one of the main symptoms of so-called "whiplash injury", and can be classified into three types: (1) myalgia of neck and nuchal muscles as the hyperextension of these muscles, (2) muscle contraction headache or tension headache, and (3) vascular headache.The first type, or myalgia of the neck is the direct result of hyperextension at the time of "whiplash injury", but the other two types of headache are associated with frustration, worry, anxiety and fear, and not the direct result of "whiplash injury".If these types of headache are diagnosed as "whiplash injury", the victims of traffic accident, who have already deep-rooted fear against "whiplash injury" as the result of recent mass media compaign on "whiplash injury", react with increased fear and worry, and their anxiety syndrome develops to its full extent presenting symptoms such as insomnolence, anorexia, nausea, dizziness, orthostatic hypotension, shoulder pain, amnesia, inability to concentrate, fatigability, irritability and emotional burst.Headache is aggravated and become chronic.Therefore, we believe, the diagnosis of "whiplash injury" should be limited to those who developed motor or sensory deficit of extremities by spinal cord or brachial plxus injury due to hyperextension of these nervous systems.Pain of the nuchal muscles should be treated as myalgia per se, and tension headache and vascular headache and other anxiety syndrome should be treated as post-traumatic syndrome with the principle of psychosomatic medicine, aiming early rehabilitation of the patients.

Abstract

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