THE EFFECT OF A SOFT COLLAR, USED AS NORMALLY RECOMMENDED OR REVERSED, ON 3 PLANES OF CERVICAL RANGE OF MOTION

Clinicians recommend soft cervical collars to immobilize the cervical spine following trauma. They apply them either as intended by the manu facturer or reversed (collar rotated 180 degrees), purportedly to achi eve limitation in a specific direction. This study investigated the ef fectiveness of soft cervical collars in limiting cervical range of mot ion when worn as recommended or reversed. All planes of cervical range of motion of 50 volunteer subjects without current or past cervical d ysfunction were measured under three conditions (no collar, recommende d use, and reversed) using the Orthopedic Systems Inc. Computerized An atometry-6000 Spine Motion Analyzer. The instrument has been previousl y shown to produce measures with high reliability and to correlate str ongly with known angular: measures. Within subjects analyses of varian ce indicated significant differences in all six ranges of motions amon g the three conditions. Post hoc paired t tests showed that wearing a collar either as recommended or reversed decreased motion compared wit h not wearing a collar, and that the position of the collar affected r ange of motion in three of the six motions. Differences in range can b e attributed to location of the collar closure and initial head postur e. Soft cervical collars can physically limit motion when worn either way.