The morning of day three of the conference was dominated by clinicians and medical practitioners, who took delegates through current research being conducted into treatment and intervention around the world.  Continue reading →

A second eclectic day at Whiplash2012, again bringing together diverse disciplines, all of whom have an interest in the topic. Today was chaired by Thatcham’s Matthew Avery. Continue reading →

Day one of Lyons Davidson’s International Whiplash 2012 conference proved to be though-provoking, intellectually challenging, controversial and extremely complex: unsurprising for a subject that pulls together professions as various as medics, academics, lawyers, insurers, engineers and physiotherapists, all of whom have their own professional perspective on the definition, diagnosis and implications of whiplash.

Representatives from around the world from each of the disciplines were present at Bristol’s M-Shed for the first day of the three-day conference (while others followed in absentia via the #whiplash2012 live Twitter feed), making this conference a truly significant addition to the global understanding of whiplash.

Chair for today was Bernie Rowe (Chairman of Lyons Davidson), who brought his expertise and many years’ experience to bear on proceedings, answering questions and putting many of his own to speakers.

The speakers themselves covered huge areas of knowledge relating to whiplash. Professor Gordon Bannister’s comprehensive history of whiplash took delegates right back to the earliest recorded whiplash-type symptoms in the 19^th century, through to the present day, examining commonly held beliefs about the injury. He concluded by saying that he believed whiplash to be a genuine condition.

Matthew Avery of the UK’s Thatcham Motor Repair Research Centre provided an engineer’s view of whiplash. He explored the ways in which the construction of modern cars and consumer testing can reduce incidence of whiplash through, for example, construction of improved seats and head rests. He also discussed WITkit, Thatcham’s web-based solution for the insurance industry.

Professor Michael Adams of Bristol University spoke about the arts of the anatomy that can be injured, describing the head as acting “’like a balloon on a stick” in collisions and explaining how low-velocity collisions can lead to high acceleration of, and strong forces on, the neck and noting that injury to the spine doesn’t heal like injury elsewhere on the body.

He was followed by Professor Richard Lewis of the UK’s Cardiff Law School, who explored the relevance of the ‘compensation culture’ debate, took delegates through the aims of compensation and noted that the tort system rather than the welfare system was a way of fully compensating whiplash sufferers. He concluded by saying that tort needs to be refocused and the practical effects re-examined.

A controversial view was given by James Dalton of the UK’s Association of British Insurers, in a talk that elicited many responses and questions from the floor. He said that whiplash was no different to any other form of neck pain, and that there were few disincentives on claimants to exaggerate symptoms for financial gain. He believes that the ‘whiplash epidemic’ is getting worse and that the law needed changing. He was followed by Assistant Professor James Elliott of Northwestern Uni in the USA, who gave a technical analysis of the research he has undertaken in ways to measure injury, through imaging of neck muscles, which reveals very different results for those who report whiplash and healthy controls.

In the afternoon, Professor Tony Dickenson of University College London looked at the possibility of measuring pain, noting that not all pains were the same; that pain is subject to change (one type of pain can inhibit another); pain itself can change over the course of a day and it is affected by psychological factors.

David Aylor of the Insurance Institute for Highway safety then gave a US engineering perspective on car safety, noting that head restraints had considerable influence on whiplash – the closer the restraint to the head, the more effective it is. He was followed by Gunter Siegmund of MEA Forensics in Canada, who discussed the  variables involved in gathering crash data and the limitations of this data. He noted that there is enormous variability in tightly controlled crash experiments, and even more so in real-world collisions.

Hermann Steffan of TU-Graz in Austria gave a highly detailed technical analysis of WITkit, types of collision and damage to cars, and the presentations concluded with Arthur Croft of the Spinal Research Institute of San Diego. He talked delegates through the crash testing carried out at the institute, which show that rear impact crashes have different effects on the neck than front crashes at exactly same speed. He also noted that injuries still occur in zero-damage collisions.

Day one concluded with lively debate, which is set to continue tomorrow as Jack Straw MP talks through his controversial opinions on whiplash, along with a panel debate – plus testing of ABI braking systems which delegates have been invited to test out in the car park of M-Shed.

A new speaker has just been added to the agenda of Lyons Davidson’s International Whiplash 2012 conference in Bristol this week.

Cardiff Law School’s Professor Richard Lewis will be speaking tomorrow (24 April) on the topic ‘Why do we compensate? Does it do any good?’ between 11.30 and midday.

Professor Lewis studied at the University of Oxford, and went on to join Norton Rose in London. He later took up a place at the Faculty at Northwestern Law School in Chicago and joined the University of Wales in 1974. Professor Lewis is an expert in accident compensation, as well as public and private insurance.

You can read his full biography here.