Whiplash, chronic neck pain, and zygapophyseal joint disorders. A selective review.

Recent research on whiplash injury has challenged the long-held view of what causes chronic neck pain in car accident victims. Although it was previously thought to result from residual scarring of muscles and ligaments, such pain is now understood to be caused by zygapophyseal-joint damage, which produces no objective findings on radiologic testing and often none on physical examination. Chronic pain from a whiplash injury can be reliably diagnosed and effectively treated in most patients by z-joint testing and radiofrequency blocks.