Feinberg
Northwestern Medicine | Northwestern University | Faculty Profiles

News Center

  • Categories
    • Campus News
    • Disease Discoveries
    • Clinical Breakthroughs
    • Education News
    • Scientific Advances
  • Press Releases
  • Media Coverage
  • Podcasts
  • Editor’s Picks
    • COVID-19
    • Cardiology
    • Cancer
    • Neurology and Neuroscience
    • Aging and Longevity
    • Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
  • News Archives
  • About Us
    • Media Contact
    • Share Your News
    • News Feeds
    • Social Media
    • Contact Us
Menu
  • Categories
    • Campus News
    • Disease Discoveries
    • Clinical Breakthroughs
    • Education News
    • Scientific Advances
  • Press Releases
  • Media Coverage
  • Podcasts
  • Editor’s Picks
    • COVID-19
    • Cardiology
    • Cancer
    • Neurology and Neuroscience
    • Aging and Longevity
    • Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
  • News Archives
  • About Us
    • Media Contact
    • Share Your News
    • News Feeds
    • Social Media
    • Contact Us
Home » Studying the Structural Causes and Consequences of Whiplash
Disease Discoveries

Studying the Structural Causes and Consequences of Whiplash

By Nora DunneDec 12, 2014
Share
Facebook Twitter Email
The investigators will use MRIs of the spine to examine changes in muscle structure and spinal cord functioning in patients who have experienced whiplash.

Northwestern Medicine scientists have received a $1.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to investigate the biological reasons that a quarter of all people with whiplash injury from motor vehicle collisions fail to fully recover.

After experiencing whiplash – when the head and neck move rapidly backward and forward – the majority of patients improve from injury within two to three months. But some develop chronic whiplash-associated disorders (WAD), encountering persistent problems such as pain, reduced neck range of movement, symptoms of post-traumatic stress, headaches and other functional disturbances.

Until recently, clinicians generally accepted that social, behavioral and psychological factors such as anxiety and depression were solely behind the physical symptoms, because they could not pinpoint any structural causes.

“The problem is that very rarely, if ever, do we have any available imaging findings – with radiography, with CT, with MRI – to accurately identify the lesions that would potentially point to the injury responsible for a person’s ongoing symptoms ” said James Elliott, PT, PhD, assistant professor in Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences and principal investigator of the study. “The old mantra was that most, if not all, people would recover following whiplash. However, up to 50 percent won’t fully recover, and 25 percent will have moderate to severe symptoms – a more complex clinical presentation.”

In the last few years, preliminary and pilot studies by Dr. Elliott’s group have provided MRI evidence suggesting that this population may have degenerative changes in certain neck and lower extremity muscles – signs similar to those in a mild incomplete spinal cord injury.

James Elliott, PT, PhD, assistant professor in Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences, will collaborate with scientists from three other Feinberg departments for this study.

To understand the possible biological mechanisms underlying chronic WAD, the investigators will track patients with whiplash one week, two weeks, three months and 12 months after their initial injury using biomechanical, electrophysiological and MRI measures to examine changes in muscle structure and spinal cord functioning.

Dr. Elliott hopes to use the new knowledge to develop better interventions for this population to improve their functional recovery rates.

“Until now, no one has really taken a close look at the motor deficits in these patients,” he said. “We hope to authenticate the chronicity of this group of WAD patients, avoiding the stigmatization of the patient as having purely a ‘psychosomatic illness’ and avoiding unnecessary and costly treatments.”

For this project, Dr. Elliott will collaborate with James Adams, MD, chair of Emergency Medicine, D Mark Courtney, MD, associate professor in Emergency Medicine, Todd Parrish, PhD, professor in Radiology, Alfred Rademaker, PhD, professor in Preventive Medicine-Biostatistics, Julius Dewald, PhD, chair of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences and Thomas George Hornby, PhD, adjunct associate professor in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

The five-year study is funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development grant R01 HD079076. Dr. Elliott is a graduate scholar of the NUCATS KL2 research program.

Hospital Medicine Physical Therapy Research
Share. Facebook Twitter Email

Related Posts

How ChatGPT Has, and Will Continue to, Transform Scientific Research

Mar 21, 2023

New Directions for HIV Treatment

Mar 21, 2023

Humans are Not Just Big Mice: Identifying Science’s Muscle-Scaling Problem

Mar 20, 2023

Comments are closed.

Latest News

How ChatGPT Has, and Will Continue to, Transform Scientific Research

Mar 21, 2023

New Directions for HIV Treatment

Mar 21, 2023

Humans are Not Just Big Mice: Identifying Science’s Muscle-Scaling Problem

Mar 20, 2023

AOA Honors New Members

Mar 20, 2023

Celebrating Feinberg’s 2023 Match Day

Mar 17, 2023
  • News Center Home
  • Categories
  • Press Release
  • Media Coverage
  • Editor’s Picks
  • News Archives
  • About Us
Flickr Photos
20230315_NM036
20230315_NM046
20230315_NM134
20230315_NM205
20230315_NM206
20230315_NM132
20230315_NM130
20230315_NM082
20230315_NM063
20230315_NM058
20230315_NM030
20230315_NM038

Northwestern University logo

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

RSS Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Flickr YouTube Instagram
Copyright © 2023 Northwestern University
  • Contact Northwestern University
  • Disclaimer
  • Campus Emergency Information
  • Policy Statements

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.