​Hidden Long Term Effects of Auto Accidents; the Sleeping Giant

The worst effects of auto accidents are more commonly the long term effects. Obviously, there is a potential for an auto accident to be fatal but with modern cars, seatbelts, airbags and other developments in car safety, fatal auto accidents have been greatly reduced. Now the unseen damage from soft tissue auto accident injuries from whiplash is becoming an epidemic in our culture.
There are a couple of significant factors that are causing these treatable auto accident injuries to go unnoticed.

The blame for this falls on both medical doctors and chiropractors but for different reasons. Medical doctors are just not trained to treat the injuries caused by whiplash and soft tissue issues seen in so many car accidents.  They are only trained to look for fractures and MAJOR bodily damage. This is part of the problem. They, like many chiropractors, do not understand that soft tissue injuries can be very MAJOR in how they affect someone. The AMA (American Medical Association) has made this clear with their Impairment Rating system which states that a “soft tissue” injury where the ligament(s) of the neck or lumbar spine should be rated as a 20%-28% whole body impairment! Compare that to a compression fracture (where a vertebra is essentially crushed) that compresses up to 50% of its original height is only a 10-13% whole body impairment.  Yes, you can crush a bone in your neck to half its size. The AMA rates it about half as significant of an impairment compared to a “soft tissue” in your neck where a ligament is injured.

Despite the severity of its effect on a person’s health, the x-rays and measurements required to diagnose this type of soft tissue injury are typically only ever done by a chiropractor. Medical training just does not seem to stress or understand the importance of this injury. Don’t think I’m picking on them though because even most chiropractors that are taking the necessary x-rays and measurements to diagnose these ligament injuries, very often do not take follow up x-rays. Which is crucial to verify whether or not these injuries have healed to determine if more care is warranted. Sadly, this is where many chiropractors fall short of the mark and treat on what the insurance company will pay for care than the patient.

Treating Car Insurance and Not Patients

You have to understand that because so many chiropractors and medical doctors don’t understand how significant these whiplash induced injuries and soft tissue injuries can affect people it’s hard for an attorney to know either.  If the attorney doesn’t understand the significance it’s near impossible for them to argue effectively on the patient’s behalf. To argue to an insurance adjuster or a jury that it’s more “just a soft tissue injury”.  If you’re a chiropractor who understands this, you have to explain to the attorney and the patient. That even though the symptoms may be much better if there is still evidence of ligament damage in the spine.

This is not an easy thing to do when the attorney doesn’t want the cost of the care to exceed what they believe is the value of the case. Even though the patient is often owed much more as a result of this type of injury caused by whiplash they will never see that money and sometimes will barely get enough to pay their medicals and have anything left.  Plus the patient is feeling better and wants to settle the case and they can’t do that until they are done with treatment.

The result is that many chiropractors, unlike Corrective Chiropractic, choose to just do the minimum treatment necessary to get the patient out of pain. Even if there is evidence more chiropractic care is needed to avoid the risk of trial with an attorney who doesn’t understand the injury or a patient who may have been non-compliant because they are out of pain and want to settle the case sooner.

So what happens with these patients?

They are now completely on their own to pay for the cost of any chiropractic care needed from an injury that may feel better but potentially is not. The real danger is that the residual effects can take a few weeks to even a few years to really be felt. By that time, it’s too late. They are also at a significant risk for the very rapid degeneration of their spine.

Everybody is Not on the Same Page When Treating Auto Accident Injuries

If there was a loss of curve or a reversal of the normal curve(s) of the spine as a result of the “soft tissue” injuries from the whiplash, then the patient is essentially guaranteed to have a very high-speed degeneration of the vertebrae and spinal discs at and around the abnormal motion and instability caused by this injury.  Hopefully, you’re starting to see why the AMA made a point to rate this type of injury so high on its Whole Body Impairment scale.

The above really just scratches the surface of the potential reasons that these common soft tissue injuries from whiplash and auto accidents are a sleepy giant that will likely result in a massive impact on the health and wellbeing of the people in this country. Do not take for granted that every chiropractor, medical doctor, or lawyer will understand the implications that these injuries can have on your health. If you or someone you know has been in an auto accident call today to set up a consultation at Corrective Chiropractic to determine if there are any unseen soft tissue or whiplash injuries that you don’t want to go untreated.