Arthur C. Croft, D.C., M.S., M.P.H., F.A.C.O.
Director, Spine Research Institute of San Diego

Friday 12:00pm - 12:30pm (Review of Program)
Sunday 9:00am - 9:15am (Review of CRASH Data)

Dr. Croft is the Founder and Director of the Spine Research Institute of San Diego and the Center for Research into Automotive Safety and Health. He has been actively engaged in whiplash research for more than 20 years and has co-authored a best-selling textbook on whiplash (Whiplash Injuries: the Cervical Acceleration/Deceleration Syndrome, 3rd edition, 2002), along with several other books, numerous textbook chapters, and over 300 professional papers. He was the original developer of the now widely used whiplash (WAD) grading system, as well as the widely used whiplash treatment guidelines.

Dr. Croft has been actively engaged in human subject crash testing for more than half a decade as a biomechanist, a trauma epidemiologist, and clinical orthopaedist. He's also trained as an automobile crash reconstructionist (Northwestern University's Traffic Institute) and is currently serving as a panel member of the newly formed International Whiplash Task Force.

VCRware, A Suite Of Spreadsheets For Vehicle Crash Reconstruction.
Sunday 9:15am - 10:15am

Dr. Brach is the author of two important new texts: Vehicle Accident Analysis and Reconstruction, and Uncertainty Analysis for Forensic Science. He has also developed software for auto crash reconstruction (VCRware) and will discuss planar impact mechanics, vehicle-pedestrian collisions, and low-speed impact. Some of the crashes we perform on Saturday will be reconstructed using this software. Highlights of his talk will include verification using experimental data and an example of auto crash reconstruction. The topic of uncertainty in auto crash reconstruction will be outlined, followed by an example of a Monte Carlo analysis.

Dr. D'Antoni, who is currently a Doctoral candidate at Seton Hall University, will review data from a qualitative systematic review that was conducted by himself and Dr. Croft in order to report the prevalence of cervical herniated discs in asymptomatic subjects using MRI scans. The results of this study will have important medicolegal implications.

Dr. Freeman, who has been a research colleague of Dr. Croft's for many years, is a trauma epidemiologist, specializing in forensic science. He will discuss the critically important issues of auto crash reconstruction, with particular attention to what forensic physicians should know about the limitations of this application of physics and how it applies to risk determination. He will also discuss the role of biomechanics and occupant kinematics in determining risk.

A Doctoral candidate in Biomedical Engineering at Yale University, Mr. Ivancic has worked on numerous projects at Dr. Panjabi's widely renowned whiplash research lab. He will discuss their new cervical spine model with muscle force replication which produced biofidelic dynamic responses to simulated rear impact. This new model is capable of generating important biomechanical data which greatly augments our understanding of whiplash injuries and injury mechanisms.

Mr. King has been a Principal of MEA for more than 10 years and serves as a Senior Scientist there. The focus of his presentation is PC-Crash, a Windows-based auto crash simulation and reconstruction program developed at the Technical University of Graz, Austria in the early 1990's. The program has a linear and angular momentum-based collision model which can handle full and sliding impacts, and a tire-roadway force model which accommodates braking (normal and ABS) and steering, and, when in 3D mode, weight shift and suspension effects. The basic program functions will be presented, along with a number of illustrative examples. Some of the crashes we perform on Saturday will be reconstructed using PC-Crash.

Since 1995 Folksam has been fitting crash pulse recorders (similar to black boxes) in cars on the Swedish market to measure acceleration forces in rear-end car crashes. The seminal research conducted by Dr. Kullgren and his group has been extremely important in explaining how crash severity influences real-life crashes. Moreover, this data has been the basis for the development of a consumer crash test program, with the aim to mirror whiplash injury risks in various car seats. Dr. Kullgren will discuss the ramification of this very interesting and critically important work.

As physicians treating musculoskeletal injuries on a daily basis, we are faced with the constant threat of being lulled into complacency, only to miss a devastating and potentially life-altering injury. Dr. Ramos, a practicing emergency room physician, will provide a brief overview of the types of injuries that can potentially walk out of the Emergency Department undetected, and into your clinic, underscoring how your history and physical exam can often be the critical determinant between a quality recovery vs. permanent long-term impairment.

Dr. Stemper is a research colleague of Drs. Frank Pintar and Narayan Yoganandan, who spoke at CRASH 2004. In addition to their work on human cervical spine specimen crash test modeling and their recent insightful and important discoveries of the differences between male and female facet joint anatomy, Dr. Stemper has developed a comprehensively validated head-neck MADYMO model which was used to investigate the biomechanical effects of impact severity, neck muscle contraction, and abnormal spinal curvature and provided a biomechanical basis for clinical findings of increased vulnerability for females, abnormal spinal postures, and at increasing impact severities.

Based on systematic reviews, it has been proposed that occult injuries to the cervical spine are probably more common than previously thought. These injuries may be systematically underrepresented in both clinical examination of whiplash injured patients, as well as during standard autopsy procedures of road traffic crash fatalities. The subject of Dr. Uhreholt's Doctoral thesis is an examination of the lower cervical spine facet joints of road traffic crash fatalities from car crashes and control material, using diagnostic imaging techniques (MRI, CT, and conventional radiography) and histological examination procedures.

Since 1995, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has rated vehicle seats and head restraints based on static measurements of geometry—how tall and how near the back of a normally seated person's head the restraint can be adjusted. Adequate geometry is a necessary element of good head restraint design, but geometric measurements constitute an incomplete assessment of the support provided to the head and neck by the restraint in a rear crash. Mr. Zuby will discuss the newest implementation of the dynamic seat and head restraint tests, using BioRID dummies, which were implemented in late 2004. All forensic and general practice and specialist practitioners should be familiar with this important new information resource.