Vertebral Artery Dissection Case Study

Margaret Nimen is a 79 year- old female who lives alone in a two story apartment that includes a stair case of thirteen stairs. She is able to perform all activities of daily living independently and enjoys going to work-out classes including kickboxing and yoga and cooking for her family. She also enjoys helping take care of her eight grandchildren by picking them up from school and watching them throughout the week at various time. She has three children that live in the same city as her and that visit her once a week for family dinner. Margaret Nimen had just returned home after getting her hair permed, which she does every other week, when she felt a sudden onset of a severe headache in the back of her neck, a pain that she had never felt
Each of these presentations can present in conjunction with one another or separately. In patients around age of 65, degenerative, arteriosclerotic changes and improper alignment can result in an have a negative effect on the portion of the vertebral artery that passes through the transverse foramen of upper cervical spine.3 This negative effect can result in an increased susceptibility for a spontaneous Vertebral Artery Dissection. Thoracic kyphosis can present with three different forms of posture that include uncompensated, compensated and congruent posture.4 Each of these kyphotic postures can place the body at increased vertebral compressive loading. Results regarding posture, concluded that uncompensated posture had the highest amount of vertebral body loading present. 4Forward head also commonly referred to as decreased cervical lordosis, can be associated with a variety of dysfunctions including but not limited to a reduction in range of motion and headache pain secondary to the cervical spine and the scapular stabilizers.5 These dysfunctions are most likely associated with improper spine alignment secondary to degeneration of the spine and weakness or atrophy of the scapular stabilizers. This state weakness and degeneration can place the cervical spine at increased risk for injury due to increased muscular inhibition due to muscle not being in the appropriate range for ultimate activation. Loss of cervical lordosis is also correlated with compromised blood flow of the arteries including the vertebral artery. Compromised blood flow of arteries, especially the vertebral artery in the cervical spine can have negative factors secondary to the decreased amount of blood that is able to be carried and the decreased rate of flow.6 Therefore cervical spine