Sensory hypoaesthesia is a feature of chronic whiplash but not chronic idiopathic neck pain

Exploration of Somatosensory Impairments in Subjects With Mechanical Idiopathic Neck Pain: A Preliminary Study

“…On the contrary, PPTs over the median nerve reported by Johnston et al 26 were higher than the current one and than in previous studies. 13,25 In addition, decreased PPTs over ulnar and radial nerves were also found in the current preliminary study, which disagree with the results previously reported by Scott et al 13 It is possible that differences in PPTs of the control group used on each study can explain the statistical discrepancies between studies. In fact, in the current study, we included patients with bilateral neck pain, whereas there was no mention of laterality of the pain in previous studies.…”

“…In fact, PPTs over median and ulnar nerve trunks were also lower in patients with acute mechanical neck pain than in healthy controls. Our results of decreased PPT over the median nerve in patients with mechanical neck pain are consistent with those reported by Chien et al 25 and Johnston et al, 26 but contrary to those previously found by Scott et al 13 On closer inspection of the data of Chien et al 25 and Scott et al,13 PPTs over the median nerve reported for their neck pain groups were very similar to our data. On the contrary, PPTs over the median nerve reported by Johnston et al 26 were higher than the current one and than in previous studies.…”

“…In fact, pressure pain hyperalgesia over the cervical spine has been a common finding in mechanical idiopathic neck pain in all previous studies 13, [24][25][26] ; however, widespread pressure hyperalgesia in patients with idiopathic neck pain has only been found in one study. 26 Johnston et al found increased sensitivity to pressure at the tibialis anterior muscle in office workers with mild to moderate/severe neck pain (nontraumatic), whereas others did not find any significant difference between patients with neck pain and controls.…”

Divergent Sensory Phenotypes in Nonspecific Arm Pain: Comparisons With Cervical Radiculopathy

“…[5][6][7][8][9][10] In studies of NSAP, the presence of hypoesthesia to vibration has previously been recorded, [11][12][13] which may suggest the presence of a minor neuropathy 11,12 and/or altered central processing, 13 possibly secondary to pain. 14 Furthermore, we recently reported the presence of sensory hypersensitivity to pressure, cold, and heat as characteristic of NSAP, whereas hypoesthesia to vibration explained a small percentage of the variance (11%).…”

Thoracic dysfunction in whiplash associated disorders: a systematic review

“…The severity of presentation in WAD is categorised according to the Quebec Task Force Classification (QTF) where the presence of clinical signs and symptoms relate to the severity of the disorder [3]. Whilst research has identified risk factors for poor prognosis [4,5], and enhanced understanding of neurophysiological changes [6], it is not known why disability and pain persist beyond normal tissue healing times. With 40-60% patients progressing to experience chronic whiplash associated disorder (CWAD), estimated costs of~$4 billion (USA) and~€10 billion (Europe) associated with management and time off work [7,8], further research is needed to fully understand anatomical dysfunction in WAD and provide new directions for clinical practice and research.…”