Trunk sway in patients with and without, mild traumatic brain injury after whiplash injury

Balance function and sensory integration after mild traumatic brain injury

“…People with mTBIs can exhibit impaired postural dynamics compared with people without mTBIs [11]. Previous studies have demonstrated that balance might be impaired immediately (within 548 hours), shortly (after 3 months) or following a long delay (of 1-4 years) after an mTBI [9,[12][13][14][15]. In a study performed by Kaufman et al [9] patients with TBI scored lower than healthy participants did under all the posturography sensoryorganization testing conditions.…”

The role of the cervical spine in post-concussion syndrome

“…Investigating the connection between cervical spine injury and balance disturbances has included studies of increased postural sway and impaired head repositioning capability in whiplash patients [24,[99][100][101][102] as well as numerous clinical reports of relief of vertigo-like symptoms following treatments to the neck in post-concussion or post-traumatic headache (PCH) patients [103][104][105]. However, direct evidence of such a link is somewhat scanty.…”

“…Studies examining whiplash associated disorders (WAD) have demonstrated two very important features for our discussion: 1) biomechanical studies have demonstrated that as little as 4.5g of neck acceleration can cause mild strain injury to the tissues of the cervical spine [19] and 2) the signs and symptoms reported by these patients, with the exception of a few key differences (i.e. radicular symptoms), appear strikingly similar to those experienced in mTBI (Table 1) [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28].…”

The investigation of four technologies to assist in detecting mild to moderate traumatic brain injury of U.S. Military service members

“…Slobounov et al [63] reported that athletes who sustained a mmTBI demonstrated no deficits in measures of postural sway while performing bilateral stance with eyes open and closed 30 days after injury. In contrast, Findling and colleagues [62] found that mmTBI patients with whiplash demonstrated greater postural sway during bilateral stance conditions on a firm surface with eyes open and closed compared to controls and patients with whiplash alone, as well as increased sway during unilateral stance on a firm surface with eyes closed compared to controls. Our results partially agree with these studies, showing postural stability was diminished among mmTBI participants , and differed from studies that either showed postural sway was not diminished [62][63] or other measures of postural sway were diminished .…”

“…Frontal and sagittal plane sway displacement were found to be significantly predictive of a diagnosis of mmTBI) with left foot in front of right eyes open, and with right leg, eyes open respectively. In previous investigations comparing mmTBI patients and controls, postural stability has not consistently been shown to be diminished among mmTBI patients during quiet stance or under conditions of diminished BOS and vision [25,[62][63]. Kaufman and colleagues [25] found that mmTBI patients demonstrated diminished postural stability only during a single sway referenced condition on the sensory organization test, but no deficits were seen during quiet stance with the eyes open or closed.…”