Motor Vehicle Collision Injuries: Mechanisms, Diagnosis, and Management

This book addresses the multidisciplinary clinical management of mild to moderate motor vehicle collision injuries. It explores the international perspective on collision injury mechanisms, diagnosis, management, and prognosis and attempts to improve the methods of current treatment protocol, describe legal implications, and clarify insurance policies. It should be useful to doctors, therapists, claims adjusters, and attorneys. The chapters have been organized in a way that allows the reader to focus on a particular area of interest. Chapter 1 is a comprehensive guide to common post-collision injuries, functional disorders, and types of problems that the clinician must diagnose. Various disorders are discussed with regard to pathophysiology and mechanisms of injury. Chapter 2 covers history and examination strategy for personal injury cases, and contains the various forms for gathering all injury-related factors that may be needed for diagnosis, treatment, and litigation. Chapter 3 covers radiology for noncomplicated neck injuries. Chapter 4 covers magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography of neck injuries in detail, with examples of common problems seen in a doctor's office. Chapter 5 expands the reader's knowledge of neurodiagnosis of upper-extremity neuropathies frequently seen after neck injury. Chapter 6 is written in two parts, the first part evaluating soft tissue repair mechanisms and healing time and the second part covering methods to document injury. Chapter 7 discusses how to manage a wide variety of mild to moderate crash injuries. Guidelines for treatment are discussed. Chapter 8, which examines rehabilitation of common postinjury disorders such as neck sprains, bulging discs, thoracic outlet syndrome, and headaches, offers the reader methods to maximize the repair outcome. Chapter 9 offers guidelines to the doctor in private practice who has a patient who is not responding to treatment and continues to have persistent pain and/or disability. Chapter 10 looks at disability frequency and regions of the body that give disability to the occupant. Chapter 11 provides the reader with information about prognosis gained from a recent international study of motor vehicle collision injury. Chapter 12 gives the doctor a sample of a narrative report whose style and content will adequately represent the needs of the patient. Chapter 13 covers the legal aspects of a personal injury case. Chapter 14 covers a broad base of crash statistics, giving the reader a broader perspective of the economic costs associated with these injuries, their frequency, and other crash topics. Chapter 15 reviews frontal collisions, side collisions, and rear-end crashes; vehicle and occupant dynamics during the crash; sizes of vehicles; influence of seat belts and head restraints on injury outcome; and the correlation between damage to the vehicle and injury extent to the occupant. Chapter 16 covers human tolerance to motor vehicle collision injuries by body region. Chapter 17 looks at health care providers, costs, and managed health care.