Research Shows Chiropractic Effective at Preventing Sports Injuries

We come across a lot of sports injuries in our West Palm Beach office, and Dr. Dennis is usually able to assist these athletes. Stanford Childrens Hospital reports that over 3.5 million children aged 14 and below are hurt each year while playing sports. Add that to the close to 2 million adults hurt every year while participating in sports-related activities, as reported by statistics collected 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 potentially realize that goal, according to a study released in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to engage in routine chiropractic treatments.

In Australian Rules football, hamstring and other leg traumas are commonplace, frequently sidelining the players and impacting their team's likelihood of winning. One specific study was administered using 59 semi-elite Australian Rules footballers to see how well chiropractic therapy could lessen these injuries and help keep them playing.

Research Shows Chiropractic Care Helps in Treating Sports Injuries

For this study in particular, every one of the volunteers was given medical treatment. Furthermore, half of them also were given chiropractic treatments at the rate of 1 treatment each week for the first six weeks, biweekly sessions for the next three months, and one session per month for the last 3 months of the study. The remaining participants were given no chiropractic intervention whatsoever and acted as the control group to assess the benefits of chiropractic.

After twenty-four matches, researchers noticed a lessened amount of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had received chiropractic care. Furthermore, that very group also missed fewer matches connected to non-contact knee injuries. This lead the researchers to conclude that chiropractic ought to be added to sports training programs to effectively decrease the amount of leg injuries.

Dr. Dennis Can Help People Find Relief From Sports Injuries & Help You Get Better Quicker

If you or your child are active in sports and you would like to make sure more time is dedicated on the field versus on the bench, call our West Palm Beach office at (561) 966-6171 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.