Understanding the Impact of Spinal Support Ligament Injuries on Disc Health

A quick Google search on "Does early MRI increase patient disability rates?" reveals that indeed it does, along with significantly escalating associated costs. Despite the excessive focus on the disc, this approach has only led to increased expenses across the board. Present-day insurers and personal injury attorneys worsen the situation with their narrow-minded belief that the disc is the sole culprit, disregarding extensive research and publications suggesting otherwise.

The issue lies in exclusively concentrating on the disc without addressing the primary injury, which is damage to the spinal support ligaments, resulting in spinal instability. This instability is responsible for the majority of symptoms experienced by the patient, as confirmed by Medscape. It is also can be the primary source of the majority of symptoms in mild traumatic brain injuries (MTBI) cases. Forgetting everything that is associated with the spinal support ligament injury and relying solely on early MRI scans can misdirect patients towards inappropriate care paths, ultimately diminishing outcomes and often substantially inflating costs.

In the illustration, discs reside deep within the spine, ensconced by red ligaments providing crucial support. Damage to these ligaments, visible on radiological scans, often signals excessive movement and leads to spinal instability, potentially permanent. These injuries, now detectable through imaging, are frequently the main source of symptoms, as reported by Medscape. It's vital to acknowledge that harm to these spinal ligaments can occur severely, even in the absence of apparent disc damage. Regrettably, prevalent beliefs among insurers and personal injury attorneys often misinterpret negative MRI results as an absence of injury, despite the reality being quite different. In cases of auto, work, or sports-related spinal injuries, there isn't a precise impact solely on the disc. That analogy would be akin to assaulting a person's leg with a baseball bat and merely noting a broken bone, ignoring the surrounding tissue damage such as split open skin and muscle damage caused by the force of the impact. Unfortunately, this prevailing notion and practice in today's spinal injury realm presume that disc damage can occur in trauma without harming the surrounding ligaments. When a disc herniation is the sole finding on MRI, it likely indicates a pre-existing disc condition rather than trauma-induced damage.

An essential criterion for identifying spinal ligament injuries lies in assessing the degree of excessive motion they induce. Typically, this evaluation requires advanced testing to gauge the severity of the injury based on specific degrees of motion. It's imperative that such testing be conducted whenever possible, by independent medical radiology services employing FDA Cleared Technology to ensure unbiased results. This eliminates the potential for provider bias, as some may have a vested interest in overstating injury severity to justify additional care, whether necessary or not. Providers who conduct and bill for such testing themselves may employ questionable technologies that lack FDA clearance.  They may also intentionally or unintentionally manipulate the studies to show greater injury than there actually is, potentially inflating the perceived severity of injuries. 

The spinal injury market urgently needs to move away from these practices.

At Spinal Kinetics, we address these concerns for providers and insurers and revolutionize the procedure by integrating advanced FDA Cleared AI. This AI autonomously detects these injuries, significantly enhancing the accuracy of our radiologists' assessments. We firmly believe that all spinal injuries should undergo excessive motion testing, and with the adoption of this technology, testing costs will decrease over time, all while AI improves in its ability to accurately produce the studies as it learns with each new study. It's important to note that this technology doesn't replace radiologists but enhances their efficiency.