3d digital craniocorpography: whiplash injury

The goal of this work is to study the vestibular system of whiplash people using a 3D dCCG system. A new experimental set-up, based on optoelettronic technique, was developed to evaluate the 3D pattern of movement of head and trunk in different experimental set-ups. The exam protocol is very close to the classical one with some changes. The frequency of the steps is decided by the subject and not pre-arranged. Moreover the stepping tests is changed too: in dCCG there is a complete deprivation of sensorial afferents while in this case the parameters are evaluated in different conditions such as the complete deprivation of the sensorial afferents, the deprivation of some sensorial afferents or the presence of all the sensorial afferents. Furthermore the subject must take his hands and arms behind the back. The displacement and rotation of the two rigid bodies head and trunk were analyzed to introduce new parameters with respect to the 2D dCCG. So 6 markers were adopted: three were put on an helmet placed on the head, two on the left shoulder and one on the right shoulder. Subjects were asked to step on the spot in a more natural way and to standardize the length of the tasks, the test finished after almost 60 steps and 35 seconds. Whiplash people executed four tests: open eyes, closed eyes, with and without the carpet on the floor. The considered parameters were extrapolated and generalized starting from those generally obtained by the 2D analysis, but trying to assess more the behaviour of the head and trunk (thought as two rigid bodies), than considering the trajectory of each marker. In particular the Index of Coordination, speeds (global with its lateral, vertical and longitudinal components), rotation angles (in the frontal, horizontal and sagittal plane) and displacements of the head and trunk were analyzed and compared with the normaly databases.