Research Shows Chiropractic Adjustments Beneficial at Preventing Sports Injuries

We see a good deal of sports injuries in our Parkland, FL office, and Dr. Scharf is usually able to help 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 almost 2 million adults injured annually while taking part in sports-related activities, as reported by statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and you can begin to see the necessity of minimizing these types of widespread injuries. One approach to possible achieve 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 commonplace, often sidelining the players and impacting their team's chance at securing a win. One particular study was conducted using 59 semi-elite Australian Rules footballers to see if chiropractic could reduce these injuries and help keep them in the game.

Research Supports Chiropractic Helps in Treating Sports Injuries

For this study in particular, all of the players got medical treatment. Furthermore, half of them also received chiropractic treatments at the rate of one treatment each week for the first six weeks, biweekly treatments for the following three months, and one treatment a month for the last 3 months of the study. The remaining half had no chiropractic intervention at all and were used as the control group to determine the benefits of chiropractic adjustments.

Following 24 matches, specialists reported a reduced amount of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had been given chiropractic care. Moreover, that same 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 dramatically reduce the number of leg injuries.

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

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