Research Shows Chiropractic Effective at Preventing Sports Injuries

We come across a good deal of sports injuries in our Woburn & Chelmsford, MA clinic, and Dr. James Ellis & Dr. Lyndsay Martin is generally able to assist these athletes. Stanford Children’s Hospital reports that more than 3.5 million children of the ages 14 and below are hurt each year while playing sports. Add that to the close to 2 million adults injured each year while engaged in sports-related activities, according to statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and you can start to see the necessity of minimizing these sorts of widespread injuries. One way to possible achieve that goal, as reported by a study released in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to engage in routine chiropractic care.

In Australian Rules football, hamstring and other leg injuries are commonplace, frequently sidelining the players and affecting their team's chance at securing a win. One specific study was conducted using 59 semi-elite Australian Rules footballers to see how well chiropractic could reduce 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 players was given medical treatment. In addition, half of them also were given chiropractic treatments at the rate of one treatment per week for the first six weeks, biweekly treatments for the next three months, and one treatment per month for the final three months of the study. The other participants had no chiropractic intervention whatsoever and were used as the control group to assess the benefits of chiropractic adjustments.

After twenty-four matches, scientists noticed a reduced number of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had received chiropractic care. Furthermore, that very group also missed fewer matches related 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 decrease the quantity of leg injuries.

Dr. James Ellis & Dr. Lyndsay Martin Can Help Patients Find Relief From Sports Injuries & Help You Recover Quicker

If you or your child plays sports and you would like to make sure greater time is dedicated on the field as opposed to on the bench, call our Woburn & Chelmsford, MA office at (781) 460-0939 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.