The long-term course of deficient cervical kinaesthesia following a whiplash injury has a tendency to seek a physiological homeostasis. A prospective study.

BACKGROUND

No research exists for the long-term course of deficient cervical kinaesthesia following a whiplash injury. Prior results depicted two divergent courses of deficient cervical kinaesthesia at 1 year.

OBJECTIVES

First, to determine the actual course(s) of untreated deficient cervical kinaesthesia from 1 year to 6-8 years post-collision and second, to investigate the association between the test results versus self-reported disability.

DESIGN

A follow-up study was conducted to measure persons who had experienced whiplash from January 2007-September 2009.

METHOD

The two clinical tests for cervical kinaesthesia, the Head-Neck Relocation (HNR) test and the Fly test are conceptualised to measure two distinct "percepts" of neck proprioception: position sense and movement sense, respectively. In both tests, the mean error of three trials was calculated for each individual and represented the kinaesthetic accuracy. These values were used for analysis.

RESULTS

Forty-one participants out of an initial forty-seven (response rate = 87.2%) were able to participate at the 6-8 years follow-up. The two divergent courses at 12 months had a tendency to seek a physiological homeostasis at the 6-8 years follow-up. Overall, very slight improvements were revealed in disability levels between the 2 assessment points.

CONCLUSIONS

Untreated deficient cervical kinaesthesia has a tendency to seek a physiological homeostasis somewhere from 1 year to 6-8 years post-collision. We therefore recommend that cervical kinaesthesia be monitored and treated early, as deficient cervical kinaesthesia may lead to adaptive compensatory patterns secondary to the remaining functional kinaesthetic deficits.