Studies Show Chiropractic Effective at Preventing Sports Injuries

We deal with a many of sports injuries in our Arlington clinic, and Jefferson Spine & Injury Center is generally able to help these athletes. Stanford Childrens Hospital reports that over 3.5 million children of the ages 14 and below are hurt each year when playing sports. Add that to the nearly 2 million adults hurt annually while participating in sports-related activities, as reported by statistics collected by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and you can begin to see the importance of preventing these types of common injuries. One approach to potentially realize that goal, as reported by a study published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to engage in regular chiropractic treatments.

In Australian Rules football, hamstring and other leg traumas are common, often sidelining the players and impacting their team's odds of winning. One particular study was administered using 59 semi-elite Australian Rules footballers to see whether chiropractic treatment could cut down on these injuries and help keep them playing.

Research Shows Chiropractic Therapy Helps in Treating Sports Injuries

For this study in particular, all of the volunteers received medical treatment. Additionally, half of them also engaged in chiropractic treatments at the rate of 1 treatment per week for the first 6 weeks, biweekly treatments for the following three months, and one session a month for the remaining three months of the study. The remaining half were given no chiropractic intervention whatsoever and were used as the control group to determine the benefits of chiropractic adjustments.

Following 24 matches, scientists noticed a reduced amount of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had received chiropractic care. Moreover, that same group also missed fewer matches related to non-contact knee injuries. This lead the researchers to come to the conclusion that chiropractic should be added to sports training programs to dramatically diminish the number of leg injuries.

Jefferson Spine & Injury Center Can Help Clients Find Comfort From Sports Injuries & Help You Get Better Faster

If you or your child are active in sports and you would like to make sure greater time is spent on the field as opposed to on the bench, call our Arlington office at (703) 933-9000 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.