Studies Show Chiropractic Adjustments Effective at Preventing Sports Injuries

We come across a good deal of sports injuries in our Tucson clinic, and Dr. Conlee is often able to help these athletes. Stanford Children’s Hospital states that more than 3.5 million children of the ages 14 and younger are injured each year when playing sports. Add that to the close to 2 million adults injured every year while taking part in sports-related activities, according to statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and you can begin to see the necessity of preventing these types of common injuries. One way to potentially achieve that goal, as reported by a study released 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 chance at winning. One particular study was conducted using 59 semi-elite Australian Rules footballers to see if chiropractic could diminish these injuries and help keep them playing.

Research Proves Chiropractic Helps in Treating Sports Injuries

For this study particularly, all of the participants received medical treatment. In addition, half of them also received chiropractic treatments at the rate of 1 session each week for the first six weeks, biweekly sessions for the next three months, and one treatment a month for the remaining 3 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 care.

After 24 matches, specialists reported a reduced amount of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had received chiropractic care. Moreover, that very group also missed fewer matches connected to non-contact knee injuries. This lead the researchers to conclude that chiropractic should be made an addition to sports training programs to effectively reduce the amount of leg injuries.

Dr. Conlee Can Help People Find Relief From Sports Injuries & Help You Recover Quicker

If you or your child plays sports and you want to ensure more time is dedicated on the field as opposed to on the sidelines, call our Tucson office at (520) 322-6161 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.