We come across a large number of sports injuries in our Waldorf, MD clinic, and Dr. Lipsitz 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 injured every year while taking part in sports-related activities, as reported by statistics collected by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and you can start to see the necessity of minimizing these sorts of common injuries. One approach to potentially realize that goal, according to a study released in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to engage in routine chiropractic treatments.

In Australian Rules football, hamstring and other leg traumas are common, frequently sidelining the players and impacting their team's likelihood of securing a win. One particular study was conducted using 59 semi-elite Australian Rules footballers to see if chiropractic could cut down on these injuries and help keep them playing.

For this study in particular, every one of the volunteers was given medical treatment. Additionally, half of them also received chiropractic treatments at the rate of one treatment each week for the first 6 weeks, biweekly treatments for the following three months, and one session each month for the final three months of the study. The other half were given no chiropractic intervention at all and were used as the control group to assess the benefits of chiropractic.

Following 24 matches, specialists reported a reduced amount of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had been given chiropractic care. Additionally, that same group also missed fewer matches correlated to non-contact knee injuries. This lead the researchers to conclude that chiropractic ought to be made an addition to sports training programs to effectively lessen the amount of leg injuries.

If you or your child plays sports and you want to ensure greater time is dedicated on the field versus on the bench, call our Waldorf, MD office at (301) 645-8898 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.
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