Studies Show Chiropractic Adjustments Effective at Preventing Sports Injuries

We see a good deal of sports injuries in our Hazleton office, and Dr. Eyerly is often able to assist these athletes. Stanford Children’s Hospital reports that more than 3.5 million children of the ages 14 and younger are hurt each year while playing sports. Add that to the nearly 2 million adults hurt annually while taking part 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 preventing these types of common injuries. One approach to possible realize that goal, as reported by a study published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to engage in regular chiropractic care.

In Australian Rules football, hamstring and other leg injuries are commonplace, often sidelining the players and affecting their team's chance at securing a win. One particular study was conducted using 59 semi-elite Australian Rules footballers to see if chiropractic could reduce these injuries and help keep them playing.

For this study in particular, every one of the participants got medical treatment. Additionally, half of them also engaged in chiropractic sessions at the rate of 1 session each week for the first six weeks, biweekly sessions for the following three months, and one session per month for the remaining three months of the study. The remaining half were given no chiropractic intervention whatsoever and were used as the control group to assess the benefits of chiropractic.

After 24 matches, specialists noted a reduced amount of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had been given chiropractic care. Moreover, that very 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 effectively reduce the number of leg injuries.

If you or your child are active in sports and you want to ensure greater time is dedicated on the field as opposed to on the bench, call our Hazleton office at (570) 455-5822 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.