Studies Show Chiropractic Care Beneficial at Preventing Sports Injuries

We encounter a lot of sports injuries in our Harleysville, PA office, and Dr. Szilagyi is generally able to help these athletes. Stanford Children’s Hospital states that more than 3.5 million children aged 14 and younger are hurt each year when playing sports. Add that to the almost 2 million adults hurt annually while engaged in sports-related activities, according to statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and you can begin to see the importance of preventing these types of widespread injuries. One approach to possible achieve that goal, as stated in a study published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to engage in regular chiropractic treatments.

In Australian Rules football, hamstring and other leg traumas are commonplace, often sidelining the players and affecting their team's likelihood of securing a win. One specific study was administered using 59 semi-elite Australian Rules footballers to see whether 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. Additionally, half of them also received chiropractic sessions at the rate of 1 session per week for the first six weeks, biweekly sessions for the following three months, and one treatment per month for the remaining 3 months of the study. The other half had no chiropractic intervention at all and acted as the control group to assess the benefits of chiropractic care.

Following 24 matches, specialists noticed a reduced number of lower limb muscle strains in the group that had received chiropractic care. Additionally, that very 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 dramatically lessen the quantity of leg injuries.

Dr. Szilagyi Can Help Patients Find Comfort From Sports Injuries & Help You Recover Quicker

If you or your child plays sports and you would like to make sure more time is dedicated on the field versus on the sidelines, call our Harleysville, PA office at (215) 256-4345 and make 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.