Sports

NCAA suggests contact limits for football practice

By John Wiens DC|July 7, 2014|Sports|

The NCAA is suggesting that football teams hold no more than two contact practices per week during the season in guidelines that grew out of a safety and concussion summit early this year.

Practice limits were among several recommendations released Monday by the NCAA, which called them guidelines that could change “in real time” rather than rules passed through legislation.

The practice guidelines also recommend four contact practices per week during the preseason and no more than eight of the 15 sessions during spring football.

The NCAA is also suggesting that schools have independent doctors to evaluate injuries and a “return to learn” process for integrating athletes back into their academic work after they have been diagnosed with a concussion.

The Safety in College Football Summit was in Atlanta in January.

More articles on concussion at Chiro.org

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Hockey player scores with chiropractic

By John Wiens DC|September 13, 2013|Sports|

Source The Toronto Star

After almost a decade playing in the National Hockey League, Gary Roberts feared that his days as a professional athlete were finished.

Thirty years old at the time and a left winger for the Calgary Flames, Roberts suffered a neck injury that left him with severe nerve damage and numbness in his arms. Repeated surgeries and rehab had little effect.

“I couldn’t hold a steak knife to cut my food,” he recalls. “My career was over. I was a pretty lost soul.”

But then, after a visit to a sports chiropractor in 1996 to relieve stress and reduce scar tissue in his upper spine and neck, Roberts regained his strength and mobility. He returned to the ice to play professional hockey for another 13 years.

“It saved my life,” says Roberts, who eventually retired from the NHL four years ago. He is now an advocate of chiropractic treatment as a complement to proper nutrition and training techniques — a program offered in his eponymously named Gary Roberts High Performance Centre at the Fitness Institute in North York. His highly regarded fitness and nutrition regimen is customized to his clients, be they elite and junior hockey players or business executives who want to be physically active.

“[Whether] you’re a professional athlete or a weekend warrior, the results are the same — your body gets beaten up,” says Roberts. “Chiropractors have taken sports to a new level.”

(more…)

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Sports Management: Introduction to Sports-related Health Care

By Frank M. Painter|April 2, 2013|Chiropractic Care, Clinical Decision-making, Education, Sports|

Sports Management: Introduction to Sports-related Health Care

The Chiro.Org Blog

We would all like to thank Dr. Richard C. Schafer, DC, PhD, FICC for his lifetime commitment to the profession. In the future we will continue to add materials from RC’s copyrighted books for your use.

This is Chapter 1 from RC’s best-selling book:

“Chiropractic Management of Sports and Recreational Injuries”

Second Edition ~ Wiliams & Wilkins

These materials are provided as a service to our profession. There is no charge for individuals to copy and file these materials. However, they cannot be sold or used in any group or commercial venture without written permission from ACAPress.

Chapter 1: Introduction to Sports-related Health Care

If you were to ask the average coach about the responsibilities of an athlete, he would most likely reply that he or she was to conduct one’s self to the credit of the team, play fair, obey the officials, keep in training, be a credit to the sport, follow the rules, and enjoy the game: win or lose. This is the rhetoric commonly spooned to the naively inclined. If it were true, fewer sports injuries would be suffered.

With rare exception, even the Little Leaguer is commonly taught to WIN, drilled to disguise foul play from the eyes of the referees and umpires. Even in so-called noncontact sports, emphasis is often placed on getting the other team’s stars out of the game without causing injury to your own team. While conditioning is emphasized, the motivation is frequently on the preservation of a potential winning season rather than on prevention of a personal injury to a human being.

These words are harsh, but realistic. Yet, doctors handling athletic injuries must have a realistic appraisal of sports today if they are in good conscience to properly evaluate disability and offer professional counsel.

The Art of Evaluation

All people participating in vigorous sports should have a complete examination at the beginning of the season; and re-evaluation is often necessary at seasonal intervals. Re-evaluation is always necessary with cases where the candidate has suffered a severe injury, illness, or had surgery.

Evaluation begins with questioning. Because of drilled routine, any doctor is well schooled in the taking of a proper case history. But with an athletic injury, both obvious and subtle questions often appear. How extensive was the preseason conditioning? How much time for warm up is allowed before each game or event? What precautions are taken for heat exhaustion, heat stroke, concussion, and so forth? Does the coach make substitution immediately upon the first sign of disability for proper evaluation? How adequate is the protective gear? How many others on the team have suffered this particular injury this season?

Who, what, when, where, how, and WHY? These are the questions which must be answered before any positive course of health care can be extended. A detailed history of past illness and injury is vital. In organized sports, an outline of the regimen of training should be a part of the history, as well as a record of performance. Most sports will require a detailed locomotor evaluation of the player. Special care must be made in evaluating the preadolescent competitor because of the wide range of height, weight, conditioning, and stages of maturation. A defect may bar a candidate from one sport but not another, or it may be only a deterrent until it is corrected or compensated. Many famous athletes have become great in spite of a severe handicap.

The Physician’s Responsibilities (more…)

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Shoulder Girdle Trauma

By Frank M. Painter|May 16, 2012|Chiropractic Care, Diagnosis, Evaluation & Management, Rehabilitation, Shoulder, Spinal Manipulation, Sports|

Shoulder Girdle Trauma

The Chiro.Org Blog

Clinical Monograph 16

By R. C. Schafer, DC, PhD, FICC

The articulations of the scapula, clavicle, and the humerus function as a biomechanical unit. Only when certain multiple segments are completely fixed can these parts possibly function independently in mechanical roles. Forces generated from or on one of the three segments influence the other two segments. Thus, they will be described here as a functional unit. Please underscore this point in your mind as you read this paper.

Read the rest of this Full Text article now!

Enjoy the rest of Dr. Schafer’s Monographs at:

Rehabilitation Monograph Page

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Musculoskeletal Development and Sports Injuries in Pediatric Patients

By Frank M. Painter|June 19, 2011|Diagnosis, Pediatrics, Sports|

Musculoskeletal Development and Sports Injuries in Pediatric Patients

The Chiro.Org Blog

SOURCE: Dynamic Chiropractic

By Deborah Pate, DC, DACBR

Physical activity is extremely important for everyone, but especially for children. A well-designed exercise program enhances the physical and intellectual development of a child. Competitive sports are often a child’s first introduction to programmed exercise.

In the past decade, there has been an increase in the number of children participating in team and solo sports. Younger children are allowed to participate in sports for enjoyment, health and personal development. However, this changes as competitive elements become more dominant and young athletes train harder and longer, and may practice a sport throughout the whole year. Consequently, sports-related injuries in children have significantly increased.

To understand pediatric injuries that can occur during sports performance, it’s important to be aware of the peculiarities of the growing musculoskeletal system. Children’s tendons and ligaments are relatively stronger than the epiphyseal plate; therefore, with severe trauma the epiphyseal plate will give way before the ligament. However, children’s bones and muscles are more elastic and heal faster. At the peak period of adolescent linear growth, the musculoskeletal system is most vulnerable because of imbalances in strength and flexibility and changes in the biomechanical properties of bone.

Physiological loading is beneficial for bones, but excessive strains may produce serious injuries to joints. Low-intensity training can stimulate bone growth, but high-intensity training can inhibit it. Growth plate disturbances resulting from sports injuries can result in limb-length discrepancy, angular deformity or altered joint mechanics, possibly causing permanent disabilities. Sports involving contact and jumping have the highest injury levels.

Pediatric Musculoskeletal Growth

Chiropractors have been uniquely trained to understand the musculoskeletal system, making them excellent resources for the management of sports-injuries. We need only to make certain we are aware of the peculiarities of the pediatric musculoskeletal system when pursuing appropriate evaluation and case management. (more…)

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Chiropractor helps PGA players work through their aches and pains

By John Wiens DC|July 28, 2010|Sports|

Source Observer-Dispatch
by FRAN PERRITANO

Tom LaFountain hails from a very athletic family, so it would be natural that his career is somehow connected to sports. LaFountain is a chiropractic orthopedist who practices in Utica, but he also has been a member of the PGA sports medicine team since 1997. He has worked with some famous golfers including Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Jim Furyk, Vijay Singh, Davis Love, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer.

Question: You’ve been involved as a chiropractor on the PGA Tour since 1997. How did that come about?

Answer: I had worked for seven years for the U.S. Speedskating Team and had done the Winter Olympic Games in Albertville, France, in 1992 and Lillihammar, Norway, in 1994. I became friends with a physical therapist who worked on the U.S. Luge team. He left to work with the PGA Tour after the 1992 Olympics. In 1997, he called me and said that they needed someone to work on the PGA Tour that had a specialty in spinal problems, and that he thought that I would be a good fit. I did a trial tournament at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles, signed on and have been there since. (more…)

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