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January 2021 Medical Newsletter

 

Chiropractic Treatment and Your Sports Injury Patient

How Can a Chiropractor Help After Sports Injury?

If your patient is an athlete, the numerous demands of participating in a sport such as running, jumping and tackling can result in painful tears, sprains, and strains.  A chiropractor can help your patient when they’ve suffered sports injuries and also help to prevent them.

Chiropractors treat and can help prevent injuries of the neck, back, shoulder, knee, and ankle. They’re skilled in manual adjustment of the spine, ensuring that bones are lined up and balanced, which helps relieve tension in the body. This allows the body to function better and become less susceptible to injury. The goal of most chiropractic techniques is to restore or enhance joint function while resolving joint inflammation and reducing pain. This hands-on therapy is often used to treat neck or back injuries but also relieves pain throughout the joints and muscles in the body.

The main reasons athletes suffer sports injuries include forceful impacts, repetitive motions, over-training and failure to warm up properly. Chiropractors can help athletes by relieving their pain and helping them heal faster after an injury. Regular visits will promote quicker recovery after games and training as well as better balance and overall performance.

To start, a chiropractor will ask your patient questions about their health and perform a structural exam of their posture, spine and balance. He or she will also examine your  patient’s back, extremities, tendons, ligaments and joints. Utilizing this information, a chiropractor will be able to determine what treatment would benefit your patient. The two most common techniques are spinal manipulation and spinal mobilization.

During spinal manipulation, a chiropractor will place your patient in different positions and perform a manual impulse to an affected joint. This releases pressure in the joint and aligns muscles and joints so they work the way they’re supposed to.  In some cases, the impulse causes an audible cracking sounds, called cavitation, due to the release of gas that happens when the joint opens up and motion is restored.

Spinal mobilization is used for patients that require a gentle approach, and utilizes tools or simple stretches to release pressure in joints.

Chiropractors may also incorporate other treatment methods to relieve pain such as ice, heat or electric stimulation. 

In addition to treating injuries, chiropractors can also help prevent injuries from occurring. Before beginning an exercise regimen or a sport, it’s recommended that athletes get evaluated by a chiropractor. Chiropractors can check  muscles and spine to detect imbalance and alleviate tension so that the body can work naturally rather than be prone to injury.

 

 



What We Do

Chiropractic Spine and Joint Adjustments, Therapeutic Exercises/Activities, Modalities, Massage Therapy, Acupuncture, and more

About Us

We are a multidisciplinary injury clinic that utilizes the synergistic power of chiropractic massage, acupuncture and exercise therapy so patients can recover from injury naturally.

Our Clinical Director, Dr. Jonathan McClaren is a licensed Chiropractic Physician with advanced certification in whiplash biomechanics and injury traumatology. He is also certified in spinal biomechanical engineering and MRI interpretation and is an accredited traffic accident reconstructionist. The clinic prides itself on striving for above-average recovery rates and including both in-office and at-home active care in our evidence-based treatment plans.
 
With our combined expertise of providers in chiropractic, massage and acupuncture we offer a variety of treatment modalities all under one roof. 
 


Efficacy of Acupuncture on the Quality of Life of Patients with Low Back Pain 

In  a 2015  research study, researchers wanted to evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture on the quality of life and long-term pain relief with low back pain. One acupuncturist treated a total of 136 patients, aged 20-93, 1-2 times a week for 5 or 10 sessions. Before treatment and after the 5th and 10th sessions, the patients pain severity and the impact of pain on the patient’s daily life were measured using a Brief Pain Inventory short form. About 90% of patients were using other treatments at the beginning of acupuncture treatment. That number significantly dropped down to 7.4% after 10 acupuncture sessions. 6 months after discharge, only 22.6% were still using other forms of therapy. Acupuncture treatment helped positively affect general activity, mood, walking ability, normal work, sleep, and relations with other people. The conclusion to this study is that acupuncture greatly improved the quality of life and pain management in patients and this treatment lasted 6 months after completion of treatment.

 



Thanks for Subscribing

The team at Cascade Spine & Injury Center wants to extend a hearty ‘thank you’ to all of our subscribers. We endeavor to bring you useful and timely information. If you’re not a regular just yet please visit our website
www.cascadespineandinjury.com
for more information.

What the Research Shows 

For Neck Pain

In a study funded by NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine to test the effectiveness of different approaches for treating mechanical neck pain, 272 participants were divided into three groups that received either spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) from a doctor of chiropractic (DC), pain medication (over-the-counter pain relievers, narcotics and muscle relaxants) or exercise recommendations. After 12 weeks, about 57 percent of those who met with DCs and 48 percent who exercised reported at least a 75 percent reduction in pain, compared to 33 percent of the people in the medication group. After one year, approximately 53 percent of the drug-free groups continued to report at least a 75 percent reduction in pain; compared to just 38 percent pain reduction among those who took medication.

          Bronfort et al. (2012), Annals of Internal Medicine

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Cascade Spine & Injury Center
5253 NE Sandy Blvd. Portland, OR 97213
Phone: (503) 893-5131 Fax: (503) 914-0923
Email: staff@cascadespineandinjury.com
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