How Does an X-ray Affect My Personal Injury Case?
Anytime you are in a car accident or other traumatic event, you will likely receive spinal x-rays to evaluate your injury. The main injury that a spine x-ray can find or rule out is a bone fracture a/k/a broken bone. However, when you have the x-ray read, you may hear many terms that you have not heard before. This article will discuss the terms that often show up in an x-ray and how they may affect your personal injury case. Some lesser familiar terms you may see on an x-ray include spondylosis, osteoarthritis, degenerative disc disease, stenosis, spondylolisthesis, and spondyloysis. Understanding what these terms mean and how they come about is critical when your car crash attorney is preparing and presenting your case. Thus, the more you understand them, the easier it is for you to assist.
What is Spondylosis?
Spondylosis is a term that is commonly used by physicians, osteopathic doctors, and chiropractors to describe any manner of degenerative condition of a patients spine. All this term really tells you is that the patient is having spinal pain and there are changes in the spine. Those changes may be natural due to age or wear and terra or may be unnatural and due to injury.
What Natural Conditions May Be Described as Spondylosis by Doctors?
Osteoarthritis, degenerative disc disease and stenosis are commonly described as spondylosis. These conditions are unique.
What is Osteoarthritis?
Osteoarthritis is an inflammation that is caused as a result of damage or injury to the facet joints. It often causes the patient to experience pain from activity, particularly prolonged or extended periods of movements involving the spine.
What is Degenerative Disc Disease?
Degenerative disc disease is the dehydration of the discs of the spine that occurs with aging. It may or may not produce pain, but it can be aggravated by trauma to produce pain when it was non-pain producing before. As we age, the discs in the spine that separate each of our vertebrae will undergo changes due to wear and tear. The discs look similar to a jelly-filled doughnut. As we age, our weight, gravity, and activity all put a downward pressure on the spine that causes these discs to lose their natural shape through dehydration. As discs shrivel from age, they can fail to provide the same height separation between the bones in the spine.
Degenerative Disc Disease (DDD) and Pain
A degenerative disc may or may not produce pain. As we age, we all develop degenerative disc disease. Most medical experts will testify that they would expect to see signs of DDD in an x-ray for anyone over the age of 30. But we do not all have back or neck pain.
Trauma is another factor that may contribute to whether a person experiences pain. Trauma that causes a sudden whip or jerk to the spine can aggravate DDD making a condition that was not previously painful become a source of pain. When a car accident produces that trauma, this is referred to as an aggravation of a preexisting condition. Thus while the DDD is not caused by the trauma, the pain—which is what requires medical treatment—may be caused by the accident.
DDD vs Direct Disk Injury
Spine injuries like ruptured and herniated discs are not visible in x-rays. These types of injuries require an MRI to identify. However, just because you have these conditions does not mean that the accident must have caused it. As the defense will always argue in these cases, they can be a result of degenerative disc disease or natural wear and tear also. It is wise to consult a spine injury attorney to discuss these types of injuries and how to prove them.
The DDD Battleground in Personal Injury Claims
Degenerative disc disease is a diagnosis that is often fought over in personal injury cases by the attorneys and their expert witnesses. The defense will argue that DDD is a natural condition that is not caused by the wreck, thus they are not responsible for it. They will also argue that any direct disc injury was really the result of this as well. Furthermore, defense attorneys will try to convince the jury that the condition was already painful by seeking out any past medical records demonstrating that the plaintiff sought care for the condition at any point prior to the accident. Your personal injury lawyer, on the other hand, will present testimony from treating doctors that the condition, while natural, can be aggravated and made painful by trauma and that the client presented with no prior symptoms or complaints. Often the past medical records plus the plaintiff’s credibility make or break the case.
What is Spinal Stenosis?
Stenosis is the abnormal narrowing of the spinal canal. Nerves run through the spinal canal. When the canal becomes narrow it can cause discs, bone spurs and even inflammation to put pressure on the nerves resulting in arm or leg pain depending upon whether the condition is in the lumbar or cervical spine. Stenosis may be caused by degenerative discs affecting the canal integrity, ruptured or herniated discs, tumors or bone spurs. It can also simply be a congenital condition.
Like DDD, stenosis may be painful, or it may not. Furthermore, a traumatic event such as a car accident can result in asymptomatic stenosis becoming a painful condition.
What is Spondylolisthesis?
Spondylolisthesis describes the condition of the spine where one of your vertebrae has slipped out of place with regard to the vertebrae below it. In commonly occurs when the ligaments that hold the spine in place have been stretched and allow the vertebrae to side out of alignment. This condition does cause low back pain when the discs rub against one another or put pressure on a nerve. This condition is often considered degenerative. However, something, possibly trauma caused the ligaments to become lax. If you had no issues before and there was a whiplash-injury to your low back, this may be related to your accident.
What is Spondylolysis?
Spondylolysis is a stress fracture of the vertebrae. Common in athletes, bone fractures may occur from force exertion on the spine or direct trauma—often from landing on ones tailbone in a fall. Bone fractures are usually the result of some sort of trauma but may occur in elderly people with age. Causation may be challenged in some of the cases depending upon the facts. However, it is a painful condition that can cause spinal integrity loss. Thus, if there were no prior medical records indicting complaints of low back pain, the spondylolysis is more likely than not related to your accident.
Conclusion
There are many findings in x-rays that may or may not directly relate to your car accident. There are also a number of pre-existing conditions that can be aggravated by a car accident or other trauma. Understanding these conditions is critical for your attorney so that he can defend your case against the arguments that the defense lawyer and his hired expert will make in an attempt to deny you justice.
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