Early Mobilization of Acute Whiplash Injuries
PainSci summary of Mealy 1986?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 at the bottom of the page, as often as possible.
From the abstract: “Results showed that eight weeks after the accident the degree of improvement seen in the actively treated [early mobilization] group compared with the group given standard treatment was significantly greater ....”
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.
Acute whiplash injuries are a common cause of soft tissue trauma for which the standard treatment is rest and initial immobilisation with a soft cervical collar. Because the efficacy of this treatment is unknown a randomised study in 61 patients was carried out comparing the standard treatment with an alternative regimen of early active mobilisation. Results showed that eight weeks after the accident the degree of improvement seen in the actively treated group compared with the group given standard treatment was significantly greater for both cervical movement (p less than 0.05) and intensity of pain (p less than 0.0125).
related content
These four articles on PainScience.com cite Mealy 1986 as a source:
- PS Does Massage Therapy Work? — A review of the science of massage therapy … such as it is
- PS Mobilize! — Dynamic joint mobility drills are an alternative to stretching that “massage with movement”
- PS Save Yourself from Neck Pain! — A complete guide to chronic neck pain and the disturbing sensation of a “crick”
- PS The Art of Rest — The finer points of resting strategy when recovering from injury and chronic pain (hint: it’s a bit trickier than you might think).
