Research Shows Chiropractic Effective at Preventing Sports Injuries

We come across a lot of sports injuries in our New York clinic, and Dr. Valente is usually able to assist these athletes. Stanford Children’s Hospital states that more than 3.5 million children aged 14 and younger are injured each year when playing sports. Add that to the nearly 2 million adults hurt each year while participating in sports-related activities, according to statistics collected by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and you can begin to see the importance of preventing these types of widespread injuries. One approach to possible achieve that goal, as stated in a study published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to engage in routine chiropractic care.

In Australian Rules football, hamstring and other leg traumas are commonplace, frequently sidelining the players and affecting their team's chance at securing a win. One particular study was administered using 59 semi-elite Australian Rules footballers to see how well chiropractic could cut down on these injuries and help keep them in the game.

For this study particularly, every one of the participants received medical treatment. In addition, half of them also engaged in chiropractic treatments at the rate of 1 treatment each week for the first 6 weeks, biweekly treatments for the following three months, and one treatment per month for the remaining three months of the study. The other group were given no chiropractic intervention whatsoever and were used as the control group to assess the benefits of chiropractic adjustments.

After 24 matches, scientists noted a reduced number of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had received chiropractic care. Furthermore, that very group also missed fewer matches correlated to non-contact knee injuries. This lead the researchers to conclude that chiropractic ought to be added to sports training programs to dramatically reduce the amount of leg injuries.

If you or your child plays sports and you would like to ensure greater time is dedicated on the field as opposed to on the bench, call our New York office at (917) 338-7917 and schedule an appointment today. We will do our best to keep you in the game!

References

• Hoskins, W, & Pollard, H. (2010, April 8). The effect of a sports chiropractic manual therapy intervention on the prevention of back pain, hamstring and lower limb injuries in semi-elite Australian Rules footballers: a randomized controlled trial. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, 11(64), doi:10.1186/1471-2474-11-64
• Misra, A. (2014, March 17). Common sports injuries: Incidence and average charges. Department of Health & Human Services.
• Stanford Children’s Hospital. (n.d.). Sports injury statistics.