Interpreting Radiology
R. Annie Gough in Injury Illustrated, 2020
The most common radiology-based personal injury case is the rear-end collision resulting in neck pain and cervical injury. An Anterior Cervical Discectomy (ACD) is the typical repair procedure. A client gets hit from behind by a speeding, sleeping, distracted, or drunk driver. They suffer acute neck pain. Whiplash is a combination of muscle strain in the anterior and posterior cervical muscles and sprain to the facet joints between the bones. The vertebral discs between the spinal vertebra bones can also be injured, displaced, and/or herniated. When a disc is herniated, it has been torn and disc material is likely to protrude and touch the spinal nerve roots or the spinal cord. When cervical disc material is displaced and touching or compressing nerve fibers, pain radiates locally or down the arms, sometimes into the shoulders or hands and fingers. These injuries are complicated when a client is hit from the side, or from the front while their head was turned, or countless other scenarios. Regardless, this acute pain can become chronic. The common surgical repair when conservative treatment and physical therapy offer no relief is the ACD. I cannot estimate how many cases of clients surgically treated with ACDs come across the desks of attorneys on this continent. There are a lot of them. I have seen so many. Regardless I always strive to create the best ACD exhibits for the client, based on their specific anatomy and injury.
Nutritional Disorders/Alternative Medicine
Walter F. Stanaszek, Mary J. Stanaszek, Robert J. Holt, Steven Strauss in Understanding Medical Terms, 2020
Yoga focuses on altering an individual's state of mind and using mind power to generate healing within the body. Various positions, known as asanas, along with concentration on breathing serve to maintain suppleness of the spine and exercise all of the major muscle groups, thereby strengthening organs due to increased respiration and blood flow. Breathing is central, as it is the vehicle for the prana or vital life force to enter the body. Yoga is often recommended by a variety of medical practitioners for remedial and preventive measures for the spine and as a stress-reduction technique. Massage, hypnosis, music therapy, and meditation/visualization techniques such as transcendental meditation (TM) are other forms of relaxation and concentration approaches to induce a positive mental state of healing.
Neurosurgery: Spine surgery
Hemanshu Prabhakar, Charu Mahajan, Indu Kapoor in Essentials of Geriatric Neuroanesthesia, 2019
Degenerative diseases of spine can be divided in to four types: Degenerative disc disease: Occurs due to reduced water content, decrease in disc space, and alteration of the collagen content in the disc.Spondylolisthesis: Slipping or displacement of the one vertebra over another. It is common at L4/L5 (3).Prolapse of the disc: Leads to radicular pain of the nerve roots. This occurs due to the irritation and inflammation of the nerve root by the biologically active tissue within the disc, such as nucleus pulposus.Spinal stenosis: Due to narrowing of the spinal canal.
Effects of backrest and seat-pan inclination of tractor seat on biomechanical characteristics of lumbar, abdomen, leg and spine
Published in Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering, 2023
Qichao Wang, Yihuan Huo, Zheng Xu, Wenjie Zhang, Yujun Shang, Hongmei Xu
The spine plays various roles in supporting the trunk, protecting the internal organs, controlling human movement and protecting the spinal cord. The adult spine consists of 26 vertebrae, including seven cervical vertebrae (C1–C7), 12 thoracic vertebrae (T1–T12), five lumbar vertebrae (L1–L5), one sacral vertebra and one caudal vertebra from the top to the bottom. The load of spine in different parts is the sum of the weight of the above limbs, muscle tension and external load. Therefore, the spine gradually widens from the top to the bottom, which is in line with the gradual increase in spinal load. The thoracic vertebra is the most important part of human spine, playing important roles in maintaining the stability and driving the movement of human upper limbs. The lumbar spine is located at the bottom of the spine, acting as a junction of the movable segment and the fixed segment. It bears a large load and is the most frequent site for the occurrence of lumbar occupational diseases. Based on these facts, this study selected some thoracic segments and the whole lumbar segment as the objects for analysis.
Communication between the gut microbiota and peripheral nervous system in health and chronic disease
Published in Gut Microbes, 2022
Tyler M. Cook, Virginie Mansuy-Aubert
As illustrated in Fig.1 and 2, vagal and spinal afferent neurons innervate the digestive tract, monitoring mechanical, chemical, thermal, and nociceptive signals related to the diet and microbiota.40–45 It is important to note that some enteric neurons are also characterized as afferent and they are labeled as “intrinsic”, while spinal and vagal neurons which originate outside of the gut are “extrinsic”. Vagal afferent neurons transmit signals up from the viscera, their cell bodies are located in the nodose ganglia (NG), and they synapse into the solitary nucleus (NTS) in the brainstem (Figure 2). The NTS integrates vagal afferent signals and relays the information up to higher brain regions such as the hypothalamus, or reflexes back down to the dorsal motor nuclei of the brainstem where vagal efferent neurons project out to effector organs.46 Spinal neurons, with cell bodies in the dorsal root ganglia (DRG), project into the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. These signals are relayed up to the brain and integrated, or they induce reflex activation of motor neurons which may bypass the brain. The spinal nerves can be subdivided into 5 divisions: cervical, thoracic, lumbar, sacral, and coccygeal, based on their projections into and out of the vertebrae.
A comparison between effectiveness of gluteal trigger point and epidural steroid injection in lumbosacral canal stenosis patients: a randomized clinical trial
Published in British Journal of Neurosurgery, 2022
Sana Sadat Khoshnazar, Hamid Reza Farpour, Reza Shahriarirad
Spinal canal stenosis is a degenerative disease of the spine and one of the most common causes of low back pain and disability, especially in geriatrics.1,2 Furthermore, the cause of about 2% of low back pain, especially in the elderly is related to lumbar spinal canal stenosis.3 Lumbosacral Spinal canal stenosis (LSS) is caused by pressure on the neurovascular structures inside the spinal cord, resulting in low back pain, radicular pain in the lower extremities, and other conditions such as restless leg syndrome.2,4 Structures that have the potential to cause this stenosis include facet joint hypertrophy, ligamentum flavum hypertrophy, bone spurs, and disc protrusion at several levels of the spine.1 The most important clinical symptom of this disease is intermittent neurogenic claudication, which is, in turn, the main cause of disability and loss of independence in the elderly.2,5 This disease imposes significant costs on the health system due to functional limitations and reduced quality of life of patients.6
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