Research Shows Chiropractic Adjustments Beneficial at Preventing Sports Injuries

We come across a good deal of sports injuries in our Yakima clinic, and Dr. Covington is usually able to assist these athletes. Stanford Children’s Hospital reports that more than 3.5 million children aged 14 and below are injured each year while playing sports. Add that to the almost 2 million adults hurt each year while participating 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 widespread injuries. One approach to potentially achieve that goal, as reported by a study published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to receive routine chiropractic care.

In Australian Rules football, hamstring and other leg traumas are common, frequently sidelining the players and affecting their team's odds of winning. One particular study was administered using 59 semi-elite Australian Rules footballers to see if chiropractic could diminish these injuries and help keep them playing.

For this study particularly, every one of the players received medical treatment. In addition, half of them also were given chiropractic treatments at the rate of 1 session each week for the first six weeks, biweekly treatments for the following three months, and one treatment a month for the remaining three months of the study. The other participants were given no chiropractic intervention whatsoever and were used as the control group to assess the benefits of chiropractic.

After 24 matches, scientists noted a diminished amount of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had been given chiropractic care. Moreover, that same group also missed fewer matches correlated to non-contact knee injuries. This lead the researchers to come to the conclusion that chiropractic ought to be added to sports training programs to effectively lessen the quantity of leg injuries.

If you or your child plays sports and you would like to ensure greater time is spent on the field as opposed to on the sidelines, call our Yakima office at (509) 895-7535 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.