Whiplash is an injury that entails problems for the diagnosis and
one of the injuries which doctors face more often. This poses a
serious medical, socio-economic and legal problem, since it requires
the intervention of public health entities, insurers, courts,
forensic medical clinics, etc.

The main objective of this thesis is the development of a new
methodology based on the kinematical study of the cyclical movement
of the cervical spine for the evaluation of its functional status in
an objective, reliable and constant way.

The study sample consisted of three well-differentiated groups. One
group of 50 healthy people (the control group). A second group
(pathology group) of 43 patients with chronic neck pain from a
whiplash history of cervical trauma classified in grades II and III
of the Quebec scale of Classification of Whiplash. Finally, a sham
(simulator) group with patients completely recovered. Patients in
this group were asked to try to reproduce the pattern of cervical
mobility they had in the most acute phases of pain.

Variables used to calculate mobility were the position angle and its
derivatives (angular velocity and acceleration), the variability and
the spontaneity, obtained from harmony and lag variables.

These results suggest that the consequences of the Whiplash injury
affect the mobility and the functionality, but not the spontaneity
of movement. In the comparative analysis between the pathological
and the simulator group a pronounced reduction of the variables
(mobility, speed and acceleration), was observed as well as a
pronounced increase in variability and a broad decline of the
harmony. The classification models have high degrees of sensitivity
and specificity.

Therefore, we conclude that the methodology described in this thesis
contributes to the improvement of current techniques of functional
assessment of the cervical spine.