Studies Show Chiropractic Beneficial at Preventing Sports Injuries

We come across a lot of sports injuries in our Parkland, FL clinic, and Dr. Neil Scharf is often able to help these athletes. Stanford Children’s Hospital states that over 3.5 million children of the ages 14 and below are injured each year while playing sports. Add that to the almost 2 million adults hurt each year while taking part in sports-related activities, according to statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and you can start to see the necessity of minimizing these types of common injuries. One approach to possible realize that goal, as reported by a study released in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to engage in regular chiropractic treatments.

In Australian Rules football, hamstring and other leg injuries are common, often sidelining the players and affecting their team's likelihood of winning. One specific study was administered using 59 semi-elite Australian Rules footballers to see if chiropractic could diminish these injuries and help keep them playing.

Research Shows Chiropractic Helps in Treating Sports Injuries

For this study in particular, every one of the volunteers received medical treatment. In addition, half of them also engaged in chiropractic treatments at the rate of one treatment each week for the first six weeks, biweekly sessions for the next three months, and one treatment each month for the final three months of the study. The remaining group had no chiropractic intervention whatsoever and were used as the control group to assess the benefits of chiropractic.

After 24 matches, researchers noted a diminished number of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had been given chiropractic care. Furthermore, that very group also missed fewer matches correlated to non-contact knee injuries. This lead the researchers to come to the conclusion that chiropractic should be added to sports training programs to effectively reduce the number of leg injuries.

Dr. Neil Scharf Can Help Patients Find Comfort From Sports Injuries & Help You Recover Faster

If you or your child are active in sports and you would like to ensure more time is spent on the field as opposed to on the sidelines, call our Parkland, FL office at (954) 227-0088 and make 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.