The Effect of Occupant and Vehicular Parameters on the Onset and Severity of Whiplash Associated Disorder

Whiplash Associated Disorder (WAD) cases millions of injuries and billions of dollars in litigation and medical cost. The purpose of this study was to determine if any relationship existed between certain occupant and vehicular constants and the onset and severity of WAD. One hundred subjects involved in low-speed collisions were selected from an active database. Fifty-nine subjects were females and 70% of the subjects were drivers. A discriminant function analysis was performed, with occupant position and duration as the only variables that had significant discriminating power. However, eighty-four percent of the subjects experienced 100millisecond accelerations and 70% were drivers. Therefore, it was concluded that there needs to be further fine tuning to distinguish between the various levels of WAD and there were no significant gender or body composition differences that preclude a person to suffering WAD.