Thanks to ChiroAccess for access to these materials!
Chiropractors have a longstanding history of treating musculoskeletal sports injuries. There have been few research studies that document the value of chiropractic treatment for sports injuries and nearly no research that has looked at providing evidence that chiropractic care can play a role in preventing those injuries. The void and need for research supporting the role of chiropractic in sports injury prevention makes a randomized clinical trial (RCT) published last week (8 April, 2010) an important contribution to the literature. [1]
Hoskins and Pollard used two groups of male semi elite Australian Rules football athletes, matched them in several ways and randomly placed them in one of two arms of the study. All received the usual and customary management and medical care. Half also received chiropractic care which consisted of both soft tissue and high velocity spinal manipulation. There research evaluated several outcomes. When chiropractic care was added to conventional management, there was a significant reduction in lower limb strain injuries, time missed as a result of knee injuries, lower low back pain, and there was improvement in health status. “In addition, although not statistically significant, there was a trend towards prevention of hamstring and primary non-contact knee injuries and there were no reported adverse outcomes from the intervention.” The authors do acknowledge the several limitations to their work including the small sample size. The work is nonetheless an important piece and one of the few where the focus is prevention.
1. 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 Musculoskelet Disord. 2010 (Apr 8); 11 (1): 64.
No comments:
Post a Comment