pincers mechanism

pincers mechanism

Sports medicine The mechanical substrate on which cervical cord neurapraxia occurs where, in the presence of cervical canal stenosis, there is either cervical spine hyperextension, causing the posterior lower face of a superior vertebral body and the anterior upper face of the lamina of a lower vertebra to come together or, in flexion, the lamina of the superior vertebra and the posterior superior aspect of the subjacent vertebral body come together; approximation causes a sudden ↓ in the canal's AP diameter, compressing the spinal cord and causing temporary neurologic dysfunction and cord deformation. See Cervical cord neurapraxia.