Soft tissue injury of the cervical spine in rear-end and frontal car collisions

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von Koch, M.¹; Kullgren, A.¹; Lie, A.¹; Nygren, A.¹; Tingvall, C.¹

Soft tissue injury of the cervical spine in rear-end and frontal car collisions

Proceedings of the 1995 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Impact

Affiliations

¹Folksam Research, Karolinska Institute and Chalmers University of Technology
Abstract

Medical impairment associated with trauma to the neck is an increasing problem all over the world. In Sweden, neck injury AIS 1 resulting from traffic accidents has become the most common injury that causes medical impairment due to traffic accident. The injury as well as the—injury mechanism are in many ways unknown. Preliminary studies indicate that the symptoms seem to be the same whether the car impact is a rear-end or frontal.

In the present study, real life data from insurance documentation and police records of accidents, as well as laboratory crash tests, were used. Insurance data on persons who sustained medical impairment from a neck injury AIS l and the correlation between the impairment and the impact direction of the car were investigated. The same data was used to analyze the structural damage of the car. Also, laboratory tests of dummy movements were analyzed. The paired comparison method was used to evaluate the influence of vehicle weight and car model as well as the age and sex of the occupants.

The laboratory crash tests indicated that similar body movements may occur in rear-end and frontal impacts. Also the acceleration pulse seem to have an influence on the occurence of neck injuries in rear-end collisions.

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