Research Shows Chiropractic Adjustments Effective at Preventing Sports Injuries

We encounter a large number of sports injuries in our Port Coquitlam office, and Northside Chiropractic is generally able to help these athletes. Stanford Children’s Hospital states that over 3.5 million children aged 14 and below are hurt each year when playing sports. Add that to the close to 2 million adults hurt 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 minimizing these types 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 traumas are common, frequently sidelining the players and impacting their team's chance at securing a win. One specific study was conducted using 59 semi-elite Australian Rules footballers to see how well chiropractic could reduce these injuries and help keep them playing.

For this study specifically, all of the participants received medical treatment. In addition, half of them also engaged in chiropractic sessions at the rate of 1 session per week for the first six weeks, biweekly sessions for the next three months, and one session a month for the remaining 3 months of the study. The remaining half had no chiropractic intervention at all and were used as the control group to assess the benefits of chiropractic.

After twenty-four matches, researchers 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 related to non-contact knee injuries. This lead the researchers to come to the conclusion that chiropractic should be added to sports training programs to effectively lessen the quantity of leg injuries.

If you or your child are active in sports and you would like to ensure more time is dedicated on the field versus on the bench, call our Port Coquitlam office at (604) 941-4596 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.