Studies Show Chiropractic Care Beneficial at Preventing Sports Injuries

We deal with a good deal of sports injuries in our Rutland clinic, and Dr. Cyr is generally able to assist these athletes. Stanford Childrens Hospital reports that over 3.5 million children of the ages 14 and younger are hurt each year while playing sports. Add that to the almost 2 million adults injured 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 importance of preventing these types of common injuries. One approach to potentially achieve that goal, as reported by a study released in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to engage in routine chiropractic treatments.

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

Research Supports Chiropractic Treatment Helps in Treating Sports Injuries

For this study particularly, all of the players was given medical treatment. In addition, half of them also received chiropractic treatments at the rate of one session each week for the first 6 weeks, biweekly treatments for the next three months, and one treatment each month for the final three months of the study. The remaining participants were given no chiropractic intervention at all and were used as the control group to assess the benefits of chiropractic.

After 24 matches, researchers noted a diminished number of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had received chiropractic care. Furthermore, that same 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 dramatically decrease the quantity of leg injuries.

Dr. Cyr Can Help Clients Find Comfort From Sports Injuries & Help You Get Better Faster

If you or your child plays sports and you would like to ensure greater time is dedicated on the field versus on the bench, call our Rutland office at (802) 775-6961 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.