Research Shows Chiropractic Care Effective at Preventing Sports Injuries

We encounter a good deal of sports injuries in our Parkland office, and Dr. Scharf is generally able to help these athletes. Stanford Childrens Hospital reports that more than 3.5 million children aged 14 and younger are hurt each year while playing sports. Add that to the almost 2 million adults injured every year while taking part in sports-related activities, according to statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and you can begin to see the importance of minimizing these types of widespread injuries. One approach to possible realize that goal, as stated in a study published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to receive regular chiropractic care.

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

Research Shows Chiropractic Therapy Helps in Treating Sports Injuries

For this study specifically, every one of the participants 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 per month for the last three months of the study. The remaining participants had no chiropractic intervention at all and were used as the control group to determine the benefits of chiropractic adjustments.

Following twenty-four matches, specialists noted a lessened number of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had received chiropractic care. Moreover, that very group also missed fewer matches correlated to non-contact knee injuries. This lead the researchers to conclude that chiropractic should be made an addition to sports training programs to effectively decrease the amount of leg injuries.

Dr. Scharf Can Help People Find Relief From Sports Injuries & Help You Heal Quicker

If you or your child are active in sports and you would like to ensure greater time is spent on the field as opposed to on the sidelines, call our Parkland 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.