How the NFL Delegates Chiropractic

Over the years, we've featured a number of articles on National Football League players who have benefited from chiropractic care, including former San Francisco greats Joe Montana, Jerry Rice and Roger Craig.¹ Clearly, many NFL players avail chiropractic to recover from the trauma inflicted on them on the field, but many of those have to seek chiropractic on their own, as not all teams and trainers are willing to refer their players to a designated "official" chiropractor.

A recent study in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics² provides some information on how NFL athletic trainers approach having the athletes under their care access chiropractic, and the percentage of teams that have an official chiropractor on staff.

A 40-question postal survey was sent to the head athletic trainers of every team in the league. The questions, related to training experience and frequency and type of treatment used to treat injured players, had been developed from responses to a previous survey sent to a pilot group of sport chiropractors and the postdoctoral faculty of the American Chiropractic Board of Sport Physicians. Twenty-two of the 36 trainers responded to the survey:

1. 45 percent of the NFL trainers had personally seen a chiropractor;
2. 77 percent of trainers had referred players to a chiropractor for evaluation or treatment; and
3. 31 percent of NFL teams have an official chiropractor on their staff, with an additional 12 percent of teams referring players to chiropractors without having one on staff.

The trainers surveyed predominantly referred players to chiropractors for the following conditions: low back pain (61 percent); "burners" or "stingers" related to neck injury (31 percent); and headaches (eight percent). Asthma and visceral disorders were not identified by the trainers as conditions appropriate for chiropractic referral, however.

Also, every one of the respondents said they thought that some of their players seek chiropractic treatment without a referral from their team's medical group.

As for other trainer opinions, 91 percent either agreed or strongly agreed that low back injury is common in the league; 53 percent agreed/strongly agreed that players with suspected subluxations should be referred to a chiropractor; and 86 percent agreed/strongly agreed that chiropractors have a role in the NFL (14 percent had no opinion, but none disagreed).

Every team's medical staff was headed by an MD, with most specializing in orthopedics.

The authors of the survey study, DCs John Stump and Daniel Redwood, note that the NFL, like the Olympic games, can serve as a launching pad for chiropractic acceptance in other sports: "Because professional sports are highly competitive and thus intensely pragmatic, they provide an arena in which new techniques can potentially move quickly toward widespread acceptance once their efficacy is established."

References

1. Chiropractic care featured on national television. Dynamic Chiropractic Aug. 18, 1990. www.chiroweb.com/archives/08/17/09.html.
2. Stump JL, Redwood D. The use and role of sport chiropractors in the National Football League: A short report. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics 2002:25(3), p. e2.