[Biomechanics of whiplash injuries of the cervical spine]

1. The whiplash injury of the cervical spine is a typical, but not very often observed injury of occupants of automotive vehicles involved in moderate collisions. 2. There still exist great uncertainties in the elaboration of expertises concerning the minor whiplash injury, so that the great part of the disturbances cannot be objectivated under a clinical point of view. And on the other hand, serious whiplash injuries often are superposed or veiled by secondary injuries. 3. Thus, the aim of the present paper was to point out injury mechanisms, to give a rough scaling of the whiplash severity under biomechanical aspects and finally to set these injury mechanisms in correlation to the following criteria of accident: a) vehicle velocity change (energy equivalent speed--EES); b) deformation of vehicles on the impact-exposed structure; c) loading of occupants by acceleration or deceleration. 4. The tolerance limit of the cervical spine generally decreases to a lower limit, if the cervical spine is changed in a pathological way, e.g. by preexisting diseases. 5. It is evident and important, that the difficult work of giving an expert's opinion on this field must be performed in an interdisciplinary collaboration of engineers for collision-analysis and physicians experienced in accident-traumatology.