CerviCollar

The Problem

Each year in the USA, over 869,000 patients suffer from neck and spinal cord injuries, often resulting in severe disability. Following trauma, cervical collars are required to immobilize the neck to prevent further spinal cord injury by maintaining optimal alignment of the cervical spine, averting paralysis or nerve damage. Moreover, these collars are used in a majority of the 18.4 million ambulance trips annually in the USA as a precaution to protect the spine. However, a recent study has identified a critical issue with current cervical collars: compression of the blood vessels (jugular veins and carotid arteries) running through each side of the neck. To stabilize the spinal cord, current cervical collar designs wrap too tightly around the sides of the neck, compressing these blood vessels. While compression of arteries requires significant pressure due to the high pressure and flow, with arterial walls being thick, veins have low pressure with very thin walls, making them easily compressible with light pressure. Compression of the jugular veins impedes blood flow, resulting in a backflow of blood to the brain. This increase in intracranial blood volume can lead to exponential elevation of ICP, leading to complications ranging from mild headaches and discomfort to limitation in the arterial blood reaching the brain, potentially leading to ischemia and severe brain damage. A sustained ICP elevation leads to brain herniation and eventual brain death. When neurologists observe an increase in ICP s in patients wearing current cervical collars, they can remove it while limiting neck movement through sedation or administer drugs to temporarily reduce ICP. However, these maneuvers increase the risk of spinal cord injury and lead to medical side effects that can worsen outcomes. While several studies independently demonstrate that increases in jugular vein compression and ICP occur when current cervical collars are worn, no study has measured both endpoints simultaneously. This is because current collars lack openings on either side of the neck, preventing the placement of an ultrasound probe to measure compression of the jugular veins. Integrated simultaneous data represents a critical gap in both clinical knowledge and collar device design. Even in the absences of ICP elevation risk, jugular vein compression poses a problem because it obstructs its task of draining waste from the brain through the glymphatic pathway.This causes a buildup of toxic proteins in the brain, increasing the risk of long-term neurological disorders such as dementia and Parkinson’s. This is important in rehabilitation facilities and at-home usage since, despite a normal ICP, long-term sequelae of jugular vein compression can avoided by using our CerviCollar instead of current collars.

Jugular Vein Compression

All current cervical collars compress tightly on the jugular veins leading to:

Backflow of blood in the skull

Increased intracranial pressure

Damaged neurological tissue

Brain death

Neck Stabilization

These are the 6 neck movements to limit as shown above :

Flexion / Extension

Left / Right Lateral Flexion

Left / Right Rotation