Trauma and Degenerative Disc Disease

A Comprehensive Guide to the Literature for Personal Injury Lawyers

Publisher: Medifocus Legal
Publication Date: April 16, 2021
Number of Pages: 107

Degenerative disc disease is a medical condition involving the deterioration of the intervertebral discs that cushion the spine, most commonly due to the wear and tear that is part of the normal aging process. In general, any activity that increases stress or strain on the spine can accelerate the degenerative process. In addition to advancing age, other risk factors for degenerative disc disease include obesity, poor posture, occupations involving frequent bending or lifting, sports-related injuries, and trauma to the spine.

Since disc degeneration associated with advancing age is usually a gradual process that develops over many years, most patients remain asymptomatic until the condition advances to the point at which it causes a breakdown of the disc structure which, in turn, leads to irritation or compression of the spinal nerve roots. At such time, patients may experience various symptoms including pain, tingling, numbness, and radiculopathy. In general, the treatment options for degenerative disc disease depend upon the severity of the symptoms and include pain medications, physical therapy, localized corticosteroid injections, and, in cases refractory to conservative treatments, surgery to alleviate compression of the nerves.

This condition is particularly relevant to personal injury lawyers in cases where trauma, such as from a motor vehicle collision or a fall, is superimposed in an individual with pre-existing degenerative disc disease. These types of cases can be especially challenging for a plaintiff’s attorney to litigate because the insurer’s defense expert will invariably attribute the patient’s ongoing pain and other symptoms to the pre-existing degenerative process as opposed to the trauma itself. To effectively counter and debunk this argument, the plaintiff’s attorney must be prepared to cross-examine a defense expert with peer-reviewed medical literature that strongly supports a causative link between the trauma and the ongoing symptoms in a client with pre-existing but previously asymptomatic degenerative disc disease. But finding this crucial literature requires meticulous research that can be time consuming, expensive, and even frustrating for many attorneys.

The MediFocus Literature Guide to Trauma and Degenerative Disc Disease is a comprehensive reference guide that was developed to provide personal injury lawyers with an in-depth understanding of the science and medicine of degenerative disc disease, the role of trauma in the context of pre-existing spinal degeneration, and how trauma may aggravate or accelerate a previously dormant degenerative process. The Guide contains over 80 journal article references with links to the article abstracts and includes access to the FREE full-text copies of 14 articles. The Guide will be a valuable addition to the library of any personal injury attorney whose scope of practice includes litigating cases in which a traumatic injury is superimposed on pre-existing degeneration of the cervical or lumbar spine.

Trauma and Degenerative Disc Disease is a one-of-a-kind literature reference Guide that includes:

• A comprehensive bibliography of 123 journal article references indexed in MEDLINE published in well respected medical and scientific journals.
• Online access to the abstracts (summaries) of the articles.
• Online access to the free full-text version of 27 articles.
• Links to full-text sources of other articles that are available for purchase directly from individual journal publishers.
• A unique “Author Directory” consisting of the names and institutional affiliations of experts who have published and have specialized knowledge about Trauma and Degenerative Disc Disease. The “Author Directory” is a valuable resource for quickly identifying and locating experts for case reviews, opinions, and testimony.

Select examples of topics that are covered by the articles referenced in this Guidebook include:

• What is intervertebral disc degeneration, and what causes it?
• Why do some intervertebral discs degenerate, when others in the same spine do not?
• Morphological changes in the human cervical intervertebral disc post trauma: response to fracture-type and degeneration grade over time.
• Acute mechanical injury of the human intervertebral disc: link to degeneration and pain.
• Modic changes of the cervical spine in patients with whiplash injury: a prospective 11-year followup study.
• ACC and back injuries: the relevance of pre-existing asymptomatic conditions revisited.
• Biomechanics of intervertebral disk degeneration.
• Neck and back pain and intervertebral disc degeneration: role of occupational factors.
• The role of back injury or trauma in lumbar disc degeneration: an exposure-discordant twin study. Spine
• Intervertebral disc cell death in the porcine and human injured cervical spine after trauma: a histological and ultrastructural study.
• Trauma induces apoptosis in human thoracolumbar intervertebral discs.
• Mechanical conditions that accelerate intervertebral disc degeneration: overload versus immobilization.
• Injury mechanisms of the cervical intervertebral disc during simulated whiplash.
• Does football cause an increase in degenerative disease of the lumbar spine?
• A cross-sectional study correlating lumbar spine degeneration with disability and pain.
• Histologic changes in the disc after cervical spine trauma: evidence of disc absorption.
• Annular tears and disc degeneration in the lumbar spine. A post-mortem study of 135 discs.

The MediFocus Literature Guide on Trauma and Degenerative Disc Disease is available in two formats:
PDF Format (available for immediate download to your computer) List Price: $ 134.95 Less Discount: $ 65.00 Your Discounted Price: $ 69.95	Soft-Cover Book (includes free PDF download plus free shipping in United States) List Price: $ 164.95 Less Discount: $ 65.00 Your Discounted Price: $ 99.95
Order by Phone: To order by phone, please call: 1-301-649-9300 Order by Mail: To order by mail, please print and complete this Order Form