page_title: Musculoskeletal injury
section_title: Spinal and neck injury
hierarchical_section_title: Musculoskeletal injury / Forms of musculoskeletal injuries / Spinal and neck injury
caption_attribution_description: English: Tennis Elbow. See a full animation of this medical topic.
context_page_description: Musculoskeletal injury refers to damage of muscular or skeletal systems, which is usually due to a strenuous activity. In one study, roughly 25% of approximately 6300 adults received a musculoskeletal injury of some sort within 12 months—of which 83% were activity-related. Musculoskeletal injury spans into a large variety of medical specialties including orthopedic surgery, sports medicine, emergency medicine and rheumatology.
  Musculoskeletal injuries can affect any part of the human body including; bones, joints, cartilages, ligaments, tendons, muscles, and other soft tissues. Symptoms include mild to severe aches, low back pain, numbness, tingling, atrophy and weakness. These injuries are a result of repetitive motions and actions over a period of time. Tendons connect muscle to bone whereas ligaments connect bone to bone. Tendons and ligaments play an active role in maintain joint stability and controls the limits of joint movements, once injured tendons and ligaments detrimentally impact motor functions. Continuous exercise or movement of a musculoskeletal injury can result in chronic inflammation with progression to permanent damage or disability.
context_section_description: The spinal column has five sections consisting of thirty three individual vertebrae separated by cushioning discs, the upper three sections are movable and the lower two are fixed. Nerve compression is a result of poor posture, prolonged computer use is an example of repetitive strain injury which affects the musculoskeletal system. Whiplash injury, whereby the force causes strain to the capsule and ligaments of the apophyseal joints of the cervical spine. Hyper-flexion is a common mechanism of injury in the cervical spine associated with an anterior compression vector and a posterior distraction vector. These injuries are associated with diving injuries, falls and car accidents. Anterior compression vector results in mild height loss, whereas hyper-extension often occurs with the posterior displacement of the head in car crashes. Severe hyper-extension injury leads to pinching of the spinal cord along the posterior margin of the body.
caption: A common form of strain on ligaments and tendons in the arm.
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