Studies Show Chiropractic Adjustments Beneficial at Preventing Sports Injuries

We come across a large number of sports injuries in our Burke clinic, and Dr. Zapf is generally able to help these athletes. Stanford Children’s Hospital states that more than 3.5 million children of the ages 14 and below are injured each year while playing sports. Add that to the almost 2 million adults injured every 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 necessity of minimizing these sorts of widespread injuries. One way to possible achieve that goal, according to a study published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to receive regular chiropractic care.

In Australian Rules football, hamstring and other leg injuries are commonplace, often sidelining the players and impacting their team's odds of securing a win. One specific study was administered using 59 semi-elite Australian Rules footballers to see how well chiropractic could reduce these injuries and help keep them in the game.

Research Proves Chiropractic Helps in Treating Sports Injuries

For this study in particular, all of the volunteers was given medical treatment. Furthermore, half of them also engaged in chiropractic sessions at the rate of one treatment each week for the first six weeks, biweekly treatments for the following three months, and one treatment a month for the final 3 months of the study. The other group had no chiropractic intervention whatsoever and were used as the control group to determine the benefits of chiropractic adjustments.

After twenty-four matches, researchers noted a diminished number of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had received chiropractic care. Moreover, that very group also missed fewer matches related to non-contact knee injuries. This lead the researchers to conclude that chiropractic should be made an addition to sports training programs to dramatically decrease the amount of leg injuries.

Dr. Zapf Can Help People Find Comfort From Sports Injuries & Help You Recover 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 Burke office at (703) 455-9555 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.