Research conducted by a team from Kolling Institute has found that swallowing difficulties after a whiplash injury appear to be an under-recognised consequence of the injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The study investigated a group of 60 patients with low-grade whiplash, finding 50 per cent of patients reported swallowing problems within 12 months of their whiplash injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 31 of these patients, there was a statistically significant worsening of their swallowing problems between three and 12 months post injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clinical specialist speech pathologist and PhD student Danielle Stone said the study was the first of its kind to use a standard patient-reported outcome measure to investigate whether swallowing issues were an under-recognised condition following whiplash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cBefore our study, there was a small amount of literature suggesting swallowing difficulties were a possible consequence of whiplash, but following our work, we now have additional data linking the two conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFurther research is needed, but this information will help in the treatment of whiplash by encouraging clinicians to consider a broader range of symptoms following a whiplash injury.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
The study also investigated whether swallowing changes were related to a change in volume of the pharynx (throat) as prior studies demonstrated a narrowing of the pharyngeal lumen in people presenting with persisting disability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cContrary to what we thought, there was no change in the volume of the pharynx in our cohort and therefore, no association with swallowing problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur investigations have played an important part in raising awareness of the conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs our study was the first to explicitly look at swallowing and whiplash using a well-accepted outcome measure, we now have more confidence that swallowing may be a feature of whiplash that warrants further investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
The research has been published in the medical journal, Dysphagia. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2002,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"research-group-tax":[],"primary-research-area":[],"class_list":["post-1975","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/thumb_Blog_shutterstock_144026332_w550_h380_fcrop.webp",550,380,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/thumb_Blog_shutterstock_144026332_w550_h380_fcrop-150x150.webp",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/thumb_Blog_shutterstock_144026332_w550_h380_fcrop-300x207.webp",300,207,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/thumb_Blog_shutterstock_144026332_w550_h380_fcrop.webp",550,380,false],"large":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/thumb_Blog_shutterstock_144026332_w550_h380_fcrop.webp",550,380,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/thumb_Blog_shutterstock_144026332_w550_h380_fcrop.webp",550,380,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/thumb_Blog_shutterstock_144026332_w550_h380_fcrop.webp",550,380,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"ict-wordpress-support@sydney.edu.au","author_link":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/author\/ict-wordpress-supportsydney-edu-au\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Research conducted by a team from Kolling Institute has found that swallowing difficulties after a whiplash injury appear to be an under-recognised consequence of the injury. The study investigated a group of 60 patients with low-grade whiplash, finding 50 per cent of patients reported swallowing problems within 12 months of their whiplash injury. In 31…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/1975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/1975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5241,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/1975\/revisions\/5241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1975"},{"taxonomy":"research-group-tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-group-tax?post=1975"},{"taxonomy":"primary-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kollinginstitute.org.au\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/primary-research-area?post=1975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}