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Medical Research

Medical research has identified several types of injury that may happen at the hairdressing salon sink. These are:

  • Beauty Parlour Stroke Syndrome(BPSS) - sometimes referred to as Vertebrobasilar Insufficiency, is when the neck is overextended back into a sink during hairwashing, damaging the blood vessels in the neck and disrupting the blood flow to the brain, resulting in a potential stroke. 

  • Salon Sink Radiculopathy - pain caused by compression on the nerve roots at the neck vertebrae level or injury to nerve roots going from the spinal cord to the extremities eg. hands, fingers.

Beauty Parlour Stroke Syndrome:
Beauty Parlour Stroke Syndrome or VBI (Vertebro Basilar Insufficiency) was first reported in the early 1990s when an American neurologist identified five patients who suffered strokes as a result of prolonged distortion of their necks from sitting at shampoo wash basins.  

In 1997, the British Medical Journal, The Lancet published a report by two British doctors about a 42 year old woman who suffered a stroke after having her hair washed. The experts said the stroke was due to a tear in her right carotid artery.

A man in England has hit the headlines after having a stroke said to be triggered after a visit to his hair salon.  

This is not the first time this phenomenon has been mentioned around the world. The term was coined by Weintraub in 1993 and has been mentioned in the press since then with several large compensation claims in the US and the UK.

For more details, please read Catherine's Blog.....