We come across a good deal of sports injuries in our Portland office, and Dr. Helton is often able to help these athletes. Stanford Children’s Hospital reports that over 3.5 million children of the ages 14 and younger are injured each year while playing sports. Add that to the nearly 2 million adults injured each year while taking part in sports-related activities, as reported by statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and you can start to see the necessity of preventing these sorts of widespread injuries. One way to potentially realize that goal, according to a study published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, is to engage in regular chiropractic treatments.
In Australian Rules football, hamstring and other leg injuries are commonplace, often sidelining the players and impacting their team's chance at winning. One particular study was administered using 59 semi-elite Australian Rules footballers to see if chiropractic could reduce these injuries and help keep them in the game.
For this study in particular, all of the volunteers was given medical treatment. Additionally, half of them also were given chiropractic sessions at the rate of one session per week for the first 6 weeks, biweekly treatments for the next three months, and one session per month for the remaining 3 months of the study. The other half were given no chiropractic intervention at all and acted as the control group to assess the benefits of chiropractic.
After 24 matches, researchers noted a diminished 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 come to the conclusion that chiropractic should be added to sports training programs to effectively lessen the number of leg injuries.
If you or your child are active in sports and you want to make sure greater time is spent on the field as opposed to on the bench, call our Portland office at (503) 771-1974 and make an appointment today. We will do our best to keep you in the game!
References
Dr. Helton, a Portland chiropractor, has been providing chiropractic health care and treatment for accident injuries for over 30 years. Dr. Helton specializes and is an expert in the evaluation and treatment of injuries from auto accidents. He has passed advanced certification training and testing by the Spine Research Institute of San Diego in the evaluation, treatment, and management of injuries from whiplash and brain traumatology.
