Studies Show Chiropractic Care Effective at Preventing Sports Injuries

We come across a lot of sports injuries in our Juneau, AK clinic, and Dr. Messerschmidt is often able to help these athletes. Stanford Children’s Hospital states that more than 3.5 million children aged 14 and below are hurt each year while playing sports. Add that to the almost 2 million adults injured each year while participating in sports-related activities, as reported by statistics collected by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and you can start to see the necessity of minimizing these types of widespread injuries. One way to possible achieve that goal, as reported by a study published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to engage in regular chiropractic treatments.

In Australian Rules football, hamstring and other leg injuries are common, frequently sidelining the players and impacting their team's likelihood of securing a win. One particular study was conducted 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, all of the participants got medical treatment. Additionally, half of them also engaged in chiropractic treatments at the rate of 1 session each 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 remaining half had no chiropractic intervention whatsoever and were used as the control group to determine the benefits of chiropractic.

Following twenty-four matches, specialists noted a diminished amount of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had been given chiropractic care. Furthermore, that same group also missed fewer matches connected 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 effectively lessen the amount of leg injuries.

Dr. Messerschmidt Can Help People Find Comfort From Sports Injuries & Help You Recover Quicker

If you or your child are active in sports and you would like to ensure more time is spent on the field versus on the bench, call our Juneau, AK office at (907) 789-1344 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.