Abstract
We take pleasure in this issue in presenting a series of plenary session lectures and some additional contributions from the Bern Symposium, a meeting held in Berne, Switzerland from March 8 to 10, 2001. The symposium was organized by Dr Bogdan Radanov and colleagues from that city where they had themselves undertaken an enormous amount of classical work in the investigation of cervical sprain syndrome. Radanov's work resolved a number of definitive issues in the investigation of whiplash, despite those who say otherwise for medicolegal reasons. He and his colleagues showed clearly that pain after cervical sprain injury was primarily correlated with the intensity of the initial pain, with the occurrence of premorbid injury and with age. Personality status before injury had no bearing on the outcome, and the intensity of pain at the beginning of injury was also correlated with depression or cognitive change later (1).