With school well underway and everyone back to their regular fall routines, we can’t help but notice the packed athletic fields all around town. The fall season means a return to school, and to the busy after-school life brought to you by your child’s after-school sports schedules. 

But at Dr. Gena Chiropractic, a leading family chiropractor in Plantation, this is a time of year where we tend to see an uptick in injuries in children. While we want to see your child grow and thrive in the sport of their choice, we want to ensure that contact sports do not cause injuries that could impact your child’s physical abilities in the long run.

The two main areas we focus on when discussing contact sports and children are of course, the brain, and also as important - the spine.

With so much attention that has recently been placed on traumatic brain injuries and Chronic-Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) in pro-football players, it only makes sense that we explore the effects on a sport like football on our children. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in people with a history of repetitive brain trauma (often athletes), including symptomatic concussions as well as asymptomatic subconcussive hits to the head that do not cause symptoms. In this recent Vox article, former college football player-turned-neuroscientist, Chris Nowinski, pointed out some seriously scary statistics:

“I think in 50 years, we will look back and be horrified that we allowed young children to play tackle football and other collision sports like soccer with heading, or ice hockey with checking, or boxing. The science is clearer than ever: Exposure data shows children as young as 9 are getting hit in the head more than 500 times in one season of youth tackle football. That should not feel normal to us. Think of the last time, outside of sports, you allowed your child to get hit hard in the head 25 times in a day. Better yet, when was the last time you were hit hard in the head?”

The article then went on to report that an analysis of the first 211 football players diagnosed with CTE at Boston University found those who started tackle football before age 12 could have a 13-year-earlier onset of the cognitive, behavioral, and mood symptoms associated with CTE. Athletes who played contact sports for more than nine years had a six times greater risk of developing Lewy body disease, a cause of Parkinson’s, than those who played eight or fewer years.

While these stats are exactly what you hope to avoid as a parent of a child who plays contact sports, we cannot forget that what happens to the rest of the body can be just as detrimental to a child’s health as a TBI or CTE injury. 

Sports-related spinal cord injuries are the most prevalent for males between the ages of 16 and 30. More than half of the catastrophic injuries that affect athletes in sports are some form of cervical spine injury, with the highest incidents affecting football and rugby players. Furthermore, 10-15% of all football players, especially linemen and defensive players, experience cervical spine injuries, as reported by Spinalcord.com. 

This is when regular chiropractic care and spinal check-ups become just as important as wearing your helmet on the football field. 

“Contact sports are aggressive. Consistent tackles, falls, and even the most minor injuries on the field can all wreak havoc on a growing child’s spine. Chiropractic check-ups and adjustments will can ensure that any subloxations are removed from your child’s spine, keeping things well aligned. Not only is this a preventative way of taking care of your child, it will also allow them to perform their best both on and off the field,” Dr. Gena says.

In fact, a study of athletes by the Journal of Chiropractic Research and Clinical Investigation concluded that athletes who received 12 weeks of chiropractic care exhibited 30 percent improvement in reaction time, versus a group with no chiropractic care. 

So before your kids suit up and head off to practice again today, give yourself the peace-of-mind you deserve by scheduling a chiropractic visit with one of our professional chiropractors at Dr. Gena Chiropractic. Located just minutes west of Fort Lauderdale, our doctors have extra training in and a passion for pediatric care.

Remember, your health is in your hands, but our hands are here to help.