Acute neck pain after manipulations in a healthy adolescent patient: a case report

Abstract

It is renowned that cervical spinal manipulation therapy (CSMT) is widely used among the people. It is frequently involved in the multidisciplinary treatment approach for neck pain and stiffness. These kind of treatments are often offered by many medical institutions such as non-medical institutions. Although spinal manipulation is a simple and safe therapy compared to surgical or pharmacological treatments, the serious complications caused by neck manipulation cannot be ignored. These complications include vertebral artery dissection, spinal cord or root injury, phrenic nerve injury, cervical subluxation, and cerebrovascular accidents.1,2 Cervical epidural hematoma (CEH) is an uncommon entity that can arise spontaneously or due to CSMT, cervical dislocation fractures, coagulopathies, thrombocytopenia, hemophilia, and immune diseases such as ankylosing spondylitis and Paget disease.3,4 Few cases of severe quadriplegia caused by neck manipulation have been reported.5-15 Most of these cases suffered from various under-lying diseases, such as coagulation dysfunction