Studies Show Chiropractic Beneficial at Preventing Sports Injuries

We encounter a lot of sports injuries in our Lancaster office, and Dr. Palmer is often able to assist these athletes. Stanford Children’s Hospital states that over 3.5 million children aged 14 and younger are hurt each year when playing sports. Add that to the nearly 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 way to potentially achieve that goal, as stated in a study released in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to receive routine chiropractic treatments.

In Australian Rules football, hamstring and other leg injuries are common, frequently sidelining the players and affecting their team's likelihood of securing a win. One specific study was conducted using 59 semi-elite Australian Rules footballers to see how well chiropractic could cut down on these injuries and help keep them playing.

Research Proves Chiropractic Helps in Treating Sports Injuries

For this study specifically, all of the players got medical treatment. In addition, half of them also received chiropractic treatments at the rate of one session per week for the first 6 weeks, biweekly sessions for the next three months, and one treatment a month for the last 3 months of the study. The other group had no chiropractic intervention whatsoever and were used as the control group to assess the benefits of chiropractic.

After twenty-four matches, specialists noted a lessened 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 conclude that chiropractic ought to be added to sports training programs to effectively lessen the number of leg injuries.

Dr. Palmer Can Help People Find Relief From Sports Injuries & Help You Recover Quicker

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 sidelines, call our Lancaster office at (716) 668-2225 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.