Automobile Crash

How your injuries occur in an auto collision.

Why everyone in the accident needs to be examined immediately.

The Evaluation from the Emergency Room May Have Missed Serious Injuries.

How Chiropractic Is Often More Beneficial Than Medicine

Although medical physicians have a definite place in the health care of this country, their education does not support them as the expert or specialist in the field of automobile accidents. On the other hand, Doctors of Chiropractic have the most extensive background and education on conditions involving the neuromusculoskeletal  (NMS) system. The term neuromusculoskeletal basically refers to your nervous system, your muscular system, and your skeletal system (joints). These are the primary sources of injury involved in automobile collisions, as well as most other common accidents. The following is a comparison of class room hours for the chiropractic college and medical college in Oregon.

Class                                   Chiropractic Hours    Medical Hours

Anatomy                                        288                            190

Neuroanatomy                               96                               84

Histology (soft tissues)                 44                                84

NMS Diagnosis                             276                             158

X-ray                                              376                              24

Total Class Room Hours            3,768                           2,465

In addition, the doctors of Northwood Health Center have studied the specific mechanisms for injuries in automobile collisions, the most beneficial treatment protocols necessary to return you to a pre-accident status, the long term effects associated with these injuries and many other post-graduate classes designed to assist us in helping you with your care.

Most people involved in an automobile collision experiences pain in one way or another. Sometimes it is severe and prevents you from doing anything. But many times the pain is mild and does not necessarily affect your lifestyle. It is in this case that people place themselves in danger of causing potential long term problems as a result of missed injuries.

Some research states that symptoms from accident injuries can be delayed days, even months down the road. Headaches, neck pain, arm pain, etc. can all be minimal at the onset of injury. Only to be exacerbated with the increased stress of occupational duties, activities of daily living, and/or the secondary affects of the healing process. During the healing process, your torn tissues will heal with a scar. This scar will cause the damaged tissues to become less flexible, weaker, and more sensitive. The increase in sensitivity may cause the increase in pain over 8 weeks later.

When you do receive care for your injuries, even immediately, the pain is not the measure of recovery. Most of the time in our treatment, the pain is the primary goal to relieve. Therefore, it will usually be the first to be corrected. However, the function of the body consisting of motion, strength, endurance and ability to withstand stress are all areas of extreme importance that will be addressed in your treatment needs by this facility. When your pain goes away, many times your functions are still significantly limited.

Pain is not a reason to start or stop treatment. Pain is merely an affect of something damaged or incorrect in your body. Allow the findings of your evaluations to determine your treatment needs, initially and throughout your treatment program.

Although there are times when symptoms and pain are so severe that it takes medication to allow you to maintain your sanity, do not mistake their role as pain relievers with an ability to heal you. In fact, many times the numbing affect medication has on your body will mask the presence of more serious injuries.

When your body is sending you signals of a problem, it is important for you to listen to those signals and have the problem evaluated. If a fire alarm was going off in your house, you would not just turn off the alarm...You would hopefully get out and call someone to check for a fire. Your pain is your bodies fire alarm. Do not just take a pill to turn off the alarm. You need to check to see if you have any injuries that are causing that pain and possibly other problems you may not be feeling. By treating what is causing the pain, instead of just treating the pain, you are able to correct the cause and prevent the pain and associated problems from returning in the future.

The longer you wait to have the cause of your pain evaluated, the more serious it will be when it is found.  In addition, the longer you wait, the more difficult it will be to effectively treat your injuries which are causing your symptoms. Sometimes we see patients that have waited too long, and there is nothing left that we can do for them. There is nothing left for anyone to do but provide them a lifetime of taking drugs to mask the pain that is inevitable in their future.

However, all of this can be avoided by getting an early examination after your accident and following the treatment plan scheduled by your doctors.

In this age of HMO's, PPO's, MCO's and the need for medical referrals, most health insurance policy holders are in the dark as to which physicians they can go to and which procedures will be covered. This prevents a lot of the general public from receiving the proper care they desperately need. More and more patients, physicians, and employers are progressively seeing the downside of health care coverage regarding HMO's, PPO's, and MCO's. However, in the case of the automobile accident, rest assured that your policy does allow you to see any primary health care provider you choose. This includes medical doctors, chiropractic doctors, osteopaths and naturopaths. With the freedom to choose whom to see, you have the ability to choose the experts in the field; the chiropractor.

Many health insurance policies require the referral from your general practitioner to see a specialist. Under your auto insurance, you do not need a referral to see a chiropractor. A common practice made by insurance company personnel is to inform you over the phone that you can not see a chiropractor for your accident without a referral. This is not true. The current laws in the State of Oregon do allow the freedom for you to choose your health care provider under the Personal Injury Protection act. You also do not need a referral to have physical rehabilitation performed by a chiropractor, which in fact is greatly needed.

Under your auto insurance, if you are involved in an accident, your policy states they must pay for all services which are considered reasonable and necessary within a year of the accident. Our services are supported by research studies and text books on automobile accident injuries and can be proven to be reasonable and necessary which allow them to be covered by your policy.

The doctors of Northwood Health Center will evaluate your injuries very specifically with appropriate examinations and x-rays if necessary. After thoroughly studying your findings, we will go over everything with you regarding your injuries and what we feel is the best course of treatment for you.

The chiropractic treatment at Northwood Health Center includes more than most offices. In addition to the very beneficial chiropractic adjustments which address the positioning and mobility of your spine and its soft tissues, we will provide complete physical rehabilitation if necessary that includes weights and pool therapy.  In this age of waiting weeks to be seen by a doctor, it is nice to know we have the ability to refer within our office for massage, acupuncture, naturopathy and psychology without the common wait from other facilities. 

Studies recommend an active approach to your health care needs even after trauma. Our treatment methods address the specific needs of your damaged tissues by assisting their healing process. This allows the overall health of the tissues to be more functional, similar to tissues that were never damaged.

And by re-evaluating your injuries regularly, we will know when treatment goals have been met or when to stop treatment. By knowing the changes in your condition on a regular basis we can customize your program as your needs change. Whether that means we add rehabilitation, or decrease a frequency of visits, we will know what is necessary. There is no guessing at Northwood Health Center.

Now that you are aware of how your body reacts to injury, why your medical doctor may not provide the most effective evaluation and treatment, and how the doctors of Northwood Health Center can provide an appropriate and thorough treatment plan, you need to make a decision as to what to do next.

The following is a list of important things to do when you are involved in a collision: