Studies Show Chiropractic Care Effective at Preventing Sports Injuries

We encounter a large number of sports injuries in our Arlington clinic, and Dr. Ernst is usually able to help these athletes. Stanford Children’s Hospital reports that over 3.5 million children of the ages 14 and below are injured each year when playing sports. Add that to the almost 2 million adults hurt each year while participating in sports-related activities, according to statistics collected by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and you can start to see the importance of preventing these types of common injuries. One approach to possible realize that goal, according to a study published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to receive routine chiropractic treatments.

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

Research Supports Chiropractic Helps in Treating Sports Injuries

For this study specifically, every one of the volunteers received medical treatment. Additionally, half of them also were given chiropractic treatments at the rate of 1 treatment each week for the first 6 weeks, biweekly treatments for the following three months, and one treatment each month for the last three months of the study. The other group had no chiropractic intervention at all and acted as the control group to determine the benefits of chiropractic care.

After twenty-four matches, researchers reported a diminished number of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had received chiropractic care. Furthermore, that very group also missed fewer matches correlated to non-contact knee injuries. This lead the researchers to come to the conclusion that chiropractic ought to be made an addition to sports training programs to effectively lessen the amount of leg injuries.

Dr. Ernst Can Help Patients Find Comfort 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 versus on the sidelines, call our Arlington office at (360) 659-8464 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.