Dislocation of the Cervical Spine
Five pages on PainSci cite Akhaddar 2010: 1. Does Posture Matter? 2. The Complete Guide to Low Back Pain 3. The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks 4. Does Spinal Manipulation Work? 5. Spinal Subluxation
PainSci commentary on Akhaddar 2010: ?This page is one of thousands in the PainScience.com bibliography. It is not a general article: it is focused on a single scientific paper, and it may provide only just enough context for the summary to make sense. Links to other papers and more general information are provided wherever possible.
A case report (and disturbing X-ray) of a traumatic cervical spine dislocation, notable for being mostly asymptomatic: just torticollis and limited motion, but no pain, weakness or altered sensation. That such a serious injury can have so little impact on a person is quite interesting!
original abstract †Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.
A 22-year-old man presented with a 10-day history of torticollis. Two months before presentation, he had fallen from standing height but did not report subsequent cervical pain, weakness, or paresthesia. On examination, there was a reduced range of movement of the cervical spine without other neurologic deficits. Radiography of the cervical spine showed a marked reversal of the cervical lordosis, anterior displacement of 60% of C4 on C5, anterior callus formation, bilateral facet dislocation, and increased posterior interspinous distance (double arrow) (Panel A). Magnetic resonance imaging was performed. Sagittal T2-weighted imaging revealed a spinal cord angulation with mild compression but without intramedullary edema or hemorrhage (Panel B). The patient was admitted for surgery. With the use of an anterior approach, diskectomy, tricortical bone grafting, and insertion of a cervical plate were carried out, with a good outcome.
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
- Classical Conditioning Fails to Elicit Allodynia in an Experimental Study with Healthy Humans. Madden 2017 Pain Med.
- Topical glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) and eccentric exercises in the treatment of mid-portion achilles tendinopathy (the NEAT trial): a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Kirwan 2024 Br J Sports Med.
- Placebo analgesia in physical and psychological interventions: Systematic review and meta-analysis of three-armed trials. Hohenschurz-Schmidt 2024 Eur J Pain.
- Recovery trajectories in common musculoskeletal complaints by diagnosis contra prognostic phenotypes. Aasdahl 2021 BMC Musculoskelet Disord.
- Cannabidiol (CBD) products for pain: ineffective, expensive, and with potential harms. Moore 2023 J Pain.