Patients that have been in motor vehicle accidents often complain about headache, brachialgia (pain radiating into 1 or both arms), vertigo or dizziness, chewing and swallowing problems, visual-motor disturbances, such as blurred vision and reduced coordination, fatigue and reduced energy, neuropsychologic dysfunction, depression, irritability, and sleep disorders.  On clinical examination, reduced range of motion of the cervical spine is prevalent. One can distinguish between the mobility of the upper cervical spine and the mobility of the lower cervical spine by assessing range of motion using an inclinometer as a visual finding.  However, this is not deemed the method of choice by the American Medical Association.  Ettlin et al.

Dizziness caused by neck problems is called cervical vertigo. The degree of dizziness varies from fleeting and mild to long lasting and debilitating. As there seems to be no practical and effective drug treatment, patients often seek alternative therapies, like chiropractic

Study Says 74% of Chronic Whiplash Patients Improved with Chiropractic A new study published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Medicine1 not only points out the superiority of chiropractic care for chronic whiplash patients, but also examines which chronic whiplash patients respond best to chiropractic care. The authors begin the paper by explaining that: “Conventional treatment of patients with whiplash symptoms is disappointing.” “A retrospective study by Woodward et al., demonstrated that chiropractic treatment benefited 26 of 28 patients suffering from chronic whiplash syndrome.”2 The question was not whether chiropractic was beneficial for acute whiplash patients, but to determine “which patients with chronic whiplash will benefit from chiropractic treatment.” The authors interviewed “100 consecutive chiropractic referrals for chronic whiplash symptoms,” seven of which were “lost to follow up.” They were able to divide the remaining 93 patients into three symptom groups: Group 1: patients with “neck pain radiating [referred pain] in a ‘coat hanger’ distribution [or pattern], associated with restricted range of neck movement but with no neurological deficit”; Group 2: patients with “neurological symptoms, signs or both in association with neck pain and a restricted range of neck movement”; Group 3: patients who described “severe neck pain but all of whom has a full range of motion and no neurological symptoms or signs distributed over specific myotomes or dermatomes.” These patients also “described an unusual complex of symptoms,” including “blackouts, visual disturbances, nausea, vomiting and chest pain, along with a nondermatomal distribution of pain [pain was not distributed along “normal” nerve supply pattern].” The patients underwent an average of 19.3 adjustments over the course of 4.1 months (average)

What Every Sufferer Should Know. . . If you’ve ever had a pounding headache that ruins your day, makes you unproductive at work, or gets you sick to your stomach, than this letter may be very important to you.

Dizziness is a common complaint in the chiropractic clinic. It is a generic term that must be clearly defined and its cause properly characterized and diagnosed for appropriate treatment to be implemented. It is a complaint that is often treatable via chiropractic manipulative and myofascial (soft tissue) and rehabilitative procedures (like specific exercises and rehab).

In Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) dizziness is generally thought to be due to debris which has collected within a part of the inner ear.  This debris can be thought of as “ear rocks”, although the formal name is “otoconia”. Ear rocks are small crystals of calcium carbonate derived from a structure in the ear.  Normally “ear rocks” (otoconia) appear to have a slow turnover. They are probably dissolved naturally as well as actively reabsorbed by the “dark cells” of the labyrinth part of the ear