Open AccessImproving the staging of neck injuries using a new index, the Neck Functional Holistic Analysis Score: Clustering approach to determine degrees of impairment
Author(s) -
Alberto J. Fidalgo-Herrera,
Carlos Jové-Blanco,
María Jesús Martínez-Beltrán,
José A. Moreno-Ruiz,
Julio C. de la Torre-Montero
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0238424
Subject(s) - medicine , range of motion , cervical spine , cervical vertebrae , retrospective cohort study , physical therapy , whiplash , surgery , poison control , emergency medicine
Background Traumatic cervical spine injuries are amongst the traffic injuries that can cause most harm to a person. Classifying subtypes of clinical presentations has been a method used in other pathologies to diagnose more efficiently and to address the appropriate treatment and the prognosis. The management of patients suffering from cervical injuries could be improved by classifying the severity of the impairment. This will allow clinicians to propose better treatment modalities according to the severity of the injury. Materials and methods The present study is a retrospective cohort study performed with the clinical data from 772 patients stored at Fisi-(ON) Health Group. All the patients treated for cervical spine injuries are evaluated using the EBI-5 ® system, which is based on inertial measurement unit (IMU) technology. The normalized range of motion of each patient was incorporated into a single index, the Neck Functional Holistic Analysis Score (NFHAS). Results Clustering analysis of the patients according to their NFHAS resulted in five groups. The Kruskal-Wallis H test showed that there were statistically relevant differences in the ROM values and NFHAS of the patients depending on the cluster they were assigned to: FE X 2 (4) = 551.59, p = 0.0005; LB ROM X 2 (4) = 484.58, p = 0.0005; RT ROM X 2 (4) = 557.14, p = 0.0005; NFHAS X 2 (4) = 737.41, p = 0.0005. Effect size with ηp 2 for the comparison of groups were: FE = 0.76, LB = 0.68, RT = 0.76 and NFHAS = 0.96. Conclusion The NFHAS is directly correlated to the available ROM of the patient. The NFHAS serves as a good tool for the classification of cervical injury patients. The degree of impairment shown by the cervical injury can now be staged correctly using this new classification.