Research Shows Chiropractic Care Effective at Preventing Sports Injuries

We see a lot of sports injuries in our Alpharetta office, and Dr. Berklich is often able to help these athletes. Stanford Children’s Hospital reports that over 3.5 million children of the ages 14 and below are hurt each year while playing sports. Add that to the close to 2 million adults injured annually while participating in sports-related activities, according to statistics collected by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and you can start to see the importance of preventing these types of widespread injuries. One approach to potentially realize that goal, as reported by a study released in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to receive regular chiropractic treatments.

In Australian Rules football, hamstring and other leg injuries are common, frequently sidelining the players and affecting their team's chance at 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 Supports Chiropractic Helps in Treating Sports Injuries

For this study particularly, every one of the volunteers got medical treatment. In addition, half of them also were given chiropractic sessions at the rate of one session per week for the first 6 weeks, biweekly sessions for the next three months, and one treatment a month for the last 3 months of the study. The remaining group were given no chiropractic intervention whatsoever and acted as the control group to assess the benefits of chiropractic adjustments.

After twenty-four matches, specialists noted a reduced number of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had received chiropractic care. Moreover, that very group also missed fewer matches correlated to non-contact knee injuries. This lead the researchers to come to the conclusion that chiropractic should be added to sports training programs to dramatically decrease the number of leg injuries.

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

If you or your child are active in sports and you would like to ensure greater time is dedicated on the field as opposed to on the bench, call our Alpharetta office at (770) 475-2225 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.