Online Continuing Education Courses

Hour 1:     Low Back and Leg Pain Following Whiplash Injury

• Point out the probable mechanisms for direct injury to the lower back during motor vehicle collisions.
• Distinguish between radiculopathy, neuropathy, and sclerogenic referral of extremity pain.

Hour 2:     Whiplash Injury and the Vertebral Artery

• Review the anatomy of the vertebral-basilar vascular systems.
• Distinguish between the anterior and posterior circulation.
• Summarize the signs and symptoms of a cervical spine vascular injury.
• Solidify the knowledge as to when the suspected vascular injury patient should be referred to diagnostic imaging or emergency services.

Hour 3:     Whiplash Injury and Traumatic Brain Injury

• Explain the differences between a blow brain injury and an inertial brain injury.
• Define the pathoanatomic and patho-biochemistry of traumatic brain injury.
• Justify clinical interventions that have a positive therapeutic influence on traumatic brain injury.

Hour 4:     Cervical Disc Herniation

• Point out the anatomical differences between lumbar and cervical discs.
• Explore the pathoanatomical and therapeutic differences between lumbar and cervical discs lesions.

Hour 5:     Examinations and Evaluations

• Explain the minimum examinations that should be performed.
• Explain the minimum requirements for charting the daily patient contact.

Hour 6:     Informed Consent

• Define the legal requirements for informed consent for chiropractic care.
• Review common entities for an informed consent and the rational for each.

Hour 7:     Reports

• Make recommendations for re-evaluations.
• Make recommendations for interim reports contents.
• Explore common academic terminology and concepts in effective report writing.

Hour 8:     Testimony

• Distinguish between a percipient witness and an expert witness.
• Explain what a subpoena is and what it means to the treating chiropractor.
• Explain what a deposition is for the treating chiropractor. Summarize the basic rules of a treating expert deposition.
• Summarize the mechanics of a personal injury trial from the perspective of the treating chiropractor.

Hour 1:    Anatomy Review 

• Emphasize the unique anatomy of the cervical spine as related to spinal trauma.
• Point out the importance of the uncinate process joints as related to disc herniation, the nerve root, the vertebral artery, and the spinal cord.
• Explain how cervical spine injury may manifest clinically as low back and leg pain.

Hour 2:    Define Sleep Hygiene

• Explain the role for sleep and sleep’s influence on the ability to safely operate a motor vehicle.
• Summarize the influence of sleep on brain neurochemistry.

Hour 3:    Awareness and Soft Tissue Injury

• Explain the influence of awareness on an impending collision and the muscles ability to protect joints.
• Explain how being “caught by surprise” by a collision is related to a poor prognosis for full recovery.

Hour 4:    Whiplash History

• Summarize the history of whiplash injuries, including mechanical mechanisms, biological mechanisms, pathology, diagnostics and management.
• Define the issues that the early whiplash literature got wrong.
• Emphasize the issues that early whiplash literature got correct.

Hour 5:    Whiplash Today

• Summarize recent advances in the understanding of whiplash injuries, emphasizing anatomy, diagnostics, pain production and pain suppression.
• Integrate whiplash trauma, chronic pain, and chiropractic care.

Hour 6:    Low Speed Collisions and Minor Vehicle Damage

• Point out the mathematics of how a low speed vehicle to vehicle collision can result in passenger injury.
• Explain why vehicle damage should not be used as a proxy for passenger injury.
• Integrate the concepts of awareness, rotation, and pre-accident spondylosis in injury magnitude and prognosis.

Hour 7:    Soft Tissue Injury and Repair

• Define the three phases of soft tissue healing and point out the time sequence for each phase.
• Justify the clinical interventions that have a positive therapeutic influence on each phase of soft tissue injury healing.
• Emphasize the concept of motion in the healing of injured soft tissues, especially spinal adjusting (specific manipulation) motion.
• Quantify acute injury and ultimate recovery(prognosis) by using measurement outcomes.

Hour 8:    Treatment Duration, Frequency, and Prognosis

• Summarize the biology and published data on treatment frequency and duration for whiplash spinal trauma.
• Point out published studies relating to recovery and prognosis.
• Reference the incidence of acceleration of spondylosis in long-term studies following a whiplash injury.

• Explain how the nervous system modulates pain.
• Describe how primary, peripheral pain becomes secondary, central pain.
• Demonstrate how to objectively test for peripheral vs central pain sensitisation.
• Discuss why whiplash patients are prone to developing chronic pain.
• Demonstrate how to assess and treat the sensorimotor control of the neck.
• Discuss where to focus your efforts in treating whiplash.
• Combine treatment modalities for greater benefit.
• Talk through a case presentation of a young woman with whiplash and fibromyalgia.