Studies Show Chiropractic Beneficial at Preventing Sports Injuries

We see a lot of sports injuries in our Estero, Bonita Springs clinic, and Dr. Green is usually able to assist these athletes. Stanford Children’s Hospital reports that more than 3.5 million children of the ages 14 and below are injured each year when playing sports. Add that to the close to 2 million adults hurt 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 start to see the necessity of minimizing these sorts of common injuries. One way to potentially achieve that goal, as stated in a study published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to receive regular chiropractic treatments.

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

Research Shows Chiropractic Helps in Treating Sports Injuries

For this study particularly, all of the players got medical treatment. In addition, half of them also engaged in chiropractic sessions at the rate of 1 treatment per week for the first 6 weeks, biweekly sessions for the following three months, and one treatment a month for the final three months of the study. The other group had no chiropractic intervention at all and acted as the control group to assess the benefits of chiropractic.

Following 24 matches, specialists noticed a lessened 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 conclude that chiropractic ought to be made an addition to sports training programs to effectively reduce the number of leg injuries.

Dr. Green Can Help Patients Find Relief From Sports Injuries & Help You Recover Quicker

If you or your child plays sports and you want to make sure greater time is dedicated on the field as opposed to on the sidelines, call our Estero, Bonita Springs office at (239) 495-1166 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.