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A bone scan is used to detect fracture or bone activity that would otherwise be difficult to see on x-ray.  It's a good test to look for vertebral compression fractures, hairline fractures, and certain types of cancer.  It's rarely positive in whiplash injury, but appropriate for patients who continue to have severe pain and spasm several weeks after the accident.  It usually doesn't show much more than 6 months from an injury.  Sometimes it will help diagnose inflammatory conditions that have started to effect the bony tissues.  It will occasionally show positive in a severe facet syndrome or SI joint syndrome.

The test starts with an IV injection of radioactive dye.  1-3 pictures are taken of the whole body or a specific area using a special nuclear medicine camera.

A SPECT scan is similar to a bone scan, but uses a CT Scan type camera to get slices through the body.