Research Shows Chiropractic Adjustments Beneficial at Preventing Sports Injuries

We come across a lot of sports injuries in our Springfield, MA office, and Dr. Michael Delson is generally able to assist 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 annually while engaged 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 preventing these sorts of common injuries. One approach to potentially realize that goal, as stated in a study published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to receive routine chiropractic treatments.

In Australian Rules football, hamstring and other leg injuries are common, 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 how well chiropractic could cut down on these injuries and help keep them playing.

For this study particularly, every one of the volunteers was given medical treatment. Additionally, half of them also were given chiropractic treatments at the rate of one treatment per week for the first six weeks, biweekly sessions for the following three months, and one treatment each month for the last three months of the study. The other group had no chiropractic intervention whatsoever and were used as the control group to assess the benefits of chiropractic.

After 24 matches, scientists noticed a reduced number of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had received chiropractic care. Additionally, that same group also missed fewer matches related to non-contact knee injuries. This lead the researchers to conclude that chiropractic ought to be made an addition to sports training programs to dramatically reduce the amount of leg injuries.

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 sidelines, call our Springfield, MA office at (413) 788-4464 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.