Research Shows Chiropractic Care Effective at Preventing Sports Injuries

We see a large number of sports injuries in our Rochester Hills office, and Dr. Dalton is often able to help these athletes. Stanford Children’s Hospital states that more than 3.5 million children of the ages 14 and younger are hurt each year while playing sports. Add that to the close to 2 million adults hurt annually while taking part in sports-related activities, according to statistics collected by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and you can begin to see the necessity of minimizing these sorts of common injuries. One approach to potentially realize that goal, as stated in a study released in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to receive regular chiropractic care.

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 administered using 59 semi-elite Australian Rules footballers to see if chiropractic could diminish these injuries and help keep them in the game.

Research Supports Chiropractic Helps in Treating Sports Injuries

For this study specifically, every one of the volunteers was given medical treatment. In addition, half of them also received chiropractic sessions at the rate of one treatment per week for the first 6 weeks, biweekly treatments for the next three months, and one treatment per month for the final 3 months of the study. The remaining participants were given no chiropractic intervention at all and acted as the control group to determine the benefits of chiropractic care.

After 24 matches, researchers noticed a lessened amount of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had received chiropractic care. Moreover, that very group also missed fewer matches related to non-contact knee injuries. This lead the researchers to come to the conclusion that chiropractic should be made an addition to sports training programs to dramatically reduce the number of leg injuries.

Dr. Dalton Can Help Clients Find Comfort From Sports Injuries & Help You Recover Faster

If you or your child plays sports and you would like to make sure greater time is spent on the field as opposed to on the bench, call our Rochester Hills office at (248) 977-7039 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.