The Chiropractor’s Role in Car Accidents

A car accident can cause several severe injuries to the spine, muscles and many parts of the human body. In some cases, the damage caused by such an accident is not immediately present and only starts to develop into a more serious problem later in the patient’s life. These problems can develop into more serious problems that put the patient’s overall health and wellbeing at risk when un-treated.

The first step to proper recovery from a car accident is to make an appointment with a Chiropractor near me.

Chiropractors are specialized and trained to thoroughly evaluate your condition. They will also be able to determine if damage has been done to areas such as the spine, neck, and shoulders, even when immediate symptoms are not present.

For this reason, an appointment with a Chiropractor for evaluation is recommended even when painful symptoms are not immediately present after suffering a car accident. This article talks about several delayed injuries after a car accident.

The possibilities of alleviating pain and damage are better when treatment starts soon after the injury.

The role of the Chiropractor in car accidents is not only to evaluate the condition but also to assist with aligning the spine in order to assist the body with its healing process.

Furthermore, the Chiropractor can assist with alleviating pain caused by the injury and can provide helpful information on exercises that will act as a type of physical therapy. Nutritional advice can also be obtained from a Chiropractor to speed up the recovery and healing process.

More information on how chiropractic can help after a car accident.

A car accident can happen at any time.

While the damage caused by such an accident doesn’t always pose a life-threatening risk, the Association for Safe International Road Travel reports that approximately 1.3 million individuals are killed each year by a car accident. This calculates to an alarming number of 3,287 deaths each day caused by such an accident. They also report that the majority of deaths caused by auto vehicle accidents account for individuals aged between 15 and 44. Death by car accident has also been classified as the 9th leading cause of death, accounting for approximately 2.2% of all deaths recorded around the entire world.

A car crash does not usually result in death. Up to 50 million individuals are involved in a car crash each year that suffer an injury or some sort of disability due to the car crash.

As many as 2.35 million individuals are severely injured or disabled due to car accidents each year in the United States. It is also estimated that death caused by road accidents will become the 5th leading cause of death by the year 2030, based on current trends around the topic.

Injuries Caused By Car Accidents

A car accident can vary from a mild bump to a more severe accident where the entire car is damaged, also damaging the lives of the individuals found inside the car at the time of the accident.

FindLaw reports that on average, a total of $277 billion of damage accounts for the cost of car accidents within the United States each year. The severity of a car accident often determines the amount of damage done to the road, the car, the environment where the accident happened and, of course, the individuals contained within the car.

The most common types of injuries obtained through a car accident include:

• Head injuries
• Back injuries
• Neck injuries
• Chest injuries

More on different types of car accident injuries.

Furthermore, injuries to the feet, hands, legs, and arms are also quite common. A car accident may involve external parties at some times, such as a pedestrian crossing the road or a motorcyclist that became part of the entire accident.

Facial, internal and spinal cord injuries can also occur and often results in severe symptoms that may require surgery.

Whiplash Injuries Requiring a Tacoma Chiropractor

Whiplash is a common injury that people involved in a car accident experience. This type of injury usually causes damage to the neck and may involve displacements within the neck.

This is usually caused by the torso’s forward acceleration that occurs when an accident happens. While the torso is pushed forward, the head usually stays in a still position. They continue to explain that researchers and medical professionals who are conducting studies on the biomechanics of whiplash injuries have found the following sites to be especially vulnerable when such an injury occurs:

• Cervical facet joints
• Facet capsular ligaments
• Dorsal root ganglia
• Vertebral arteries
• Cerical muscles
• Craniovertebral junction

While all of the above-mentioned sites in the human body may be impacted by a whiplash injury, they report that the facet joints are usually the culprit that is linked to chronic pain that is caused by this type of injury. They also report that muscle injuries are sometimes responsible for symptoms in patients with whiplash injuries.

Delayed Injury Symptoms

People experience some of the effects of a car accident immediately upon impact. However, mental fog and confusion (usually caused by an undiagnosed concussion, see below) often affects a person involved in a crash and may cause delayed injury symptoms. These symptoms are signs of physical damage that have been caused by the accident, but the impact was not immediately identifiable upon crashing.

The first six weeks following an accident are usually the most painful. Symptoms experienced after this period may be a delayed injury symptom, pointing towards a physical injury that occurred upon impact, but haven’t been diagnosed due to the emotional impact of the accident.

It is reported that headaches experienced after a six-week period following a car accident may point towards an injury that occurred to the neck or even a concussion.

Pain within the neck and shoulder region may also point toward a whiplash injury and can often result in serious damage caused to the bones in a specific region. Back pain, abdominal pain, swelling in the abdominal area, numbness, and changes in a person’s physical function can also point toward delayed injury symptoms.

Conclusion

With millions of car accidents resulting in severe injuries and even disability, taking care of problems that occur during such an accident is vital. A visit to the office of a local Chiropractor can usually assist with realigning the spine, which helps to speed up the recovery process of the body. Further physical exercises can also be prescribed to the patient in order to provide additional support.