Studies Show Chiropractic Care Effective at Preventing Sports Injuries

We encounter a good deal of sports injuries in our State College clinic, and Drs. Matt & Annie Reyes is often able to help these athletes. Stanford Childrens Hospital states that more than 3.5 million children aged 14 and below are injured each year when playing sports. Add that to the almost 2 million adults hurt each year 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 importance of minimizing these sorts of common injuries. One approach to potentially achieve that goal, as stated in a study published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to engage in routine chiropractic treatments.

In Australian Rules football, hamstring and other leg traumas are common, often sidelining the players and affecting their team's chance at winning. One particular study was administered using 59 semi-elite Australian Rules footballers to see if chiropractic therapy could reduce these injuries and help keep them in the game.

Research Supports Chiropractic Care Helps in Treating Sports Injuries

For this study in particular, all of the volunteers received medical treatment. Additionally, half of them also received chiropractic treatments at the rate of one treatment per week for the first six weeks, biweekly sessions for the following three months, and one treatment a month for the remaining three months of the study. The remaining participants had no chiropractic intervention whatsoever and were used as the control group to assess the benefits of chiropractic care.

Following twenty-four matches, researchers reported a lessened amount of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had received chiropractic care. Additionally, that very group also missed fewer matches related to non-contact knee injuries. This lead the researchers to conclude that chiropractic should be added to sports training programs to effectively lessen the number of leg injuries.

Drs. Matt & Annie Reyes Can Help Patients Find Comfort From Sports Injuries & Help You Heal Faster

If you or your child are active in sports and you would like to make sure more time is dedicated on the field as opposed to on the bench, call our State College office at (814) 308-9352 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.