Fender Benders Don’t (Necessarily) Mean Back Problems

New work highlights the need for physicians to have a handle on the realistic outcomes of low impact car collisions. The research, “A Comprehensive Review of Low-Speed Rear Impact Volunteer Studies and a Comparison to Real-World Outcomes,” appears in the September 15, 2018 edition of Spine.

Co-author Joseph Cormier, Ph.D. with the Biodynamic Research Corporation in San Antonio, Texas, explained his work to OTW, “As a biomechanical engineer, injury tolerance and causation has been a focus of my research for the last 15 years. Injury potential in low-speed events has been a focus of research and litigation support performed by Biodynamic Research for the last 25 years. The topic of this article was of particular interest because while the extensive research performed using human volunteers has demonstrated the nature of minor rear impacts. Our study is the first to compare volunteer outcomes documented as a result of real-world impacts.”

“Our study, as well as numerous others, has shown that the severity of an impact, measured by the vehicle change in speed, is the best predictor of the likelihood of injury. Therefore, in terms of assessing the cause of a specific injury, an understanding of the impact severity and relevant biomechanical science is essential.”

“Additionally, there is a misperception within the medical community that anyone can get ‘injured’ in any type of event—even an exceptionally minor motor vehicle collision (MVC). This is simply based on the history the clinician obtains from their patient. This neglects the magnitude and direction of applied forces.”

“The findings in our study are consistent with prior biomechanical work which has shown that specific injuries can only be caused by a specific set of loading directions which produces an injury mechanism. Minor rear impacts do not produce the mechanism to cause an acute, isolated disc herniation which is a common condition and mistakenly related to a minor collision.”

The authors wrote, “A total of 51 human volunteer studies were identified that produced a dataset of 1984 volunteer impacts along with a separate dataset of 515,601 weighted occupants in real-world rear impacts.”

According to Dr. Cormier, “Our study found that volunteer studies had similar outcomes to real-world rear impacts which supports the general acceptance that minor rear impacts do not produce injury beyond minor muscle strains.”

“Minor rear impacts are often blamed for causing acute and isolated spinal injuries which do not have a biomechanical basis. Orthopedic surgeons interact with individuals that have been involved in minor vehicular events and when asked to opine on causation, they should have some understanding of the relevant biomechanical science instead of solely relying on the word of their patient.”