Protocol based management of common sports injuries by integrated approach of Sandhi Marmabhighata - An open labeled clinical trial

BACKGROUND: Sports injuries are the second most common type of accident after domestic (3.7%) and occupational accidents (3.1%). There is an average annual estimate of 8.6 million sports and recreational related injury incidents with an age-adjusted rate of 34.1 per 1000 populations. Common sports injuries are musculoskeletal injuries i.e. Sprains, Strains, Joint injuries, soft tissue injury (STI). The sports injury in Ayurveda can be co-related within dissimilar facets of trauma related ailments. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of a protocol-based management of common sports injuries using an integrated approach. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Integration of Ayurveda and Physiotherapy procedures was done and phase wise treatment was framed. Total 30 patients of age between 10 and 60 years ful-filling the inclusion criteria were selected for the present study. The patients were treated with Phase wise protocol consisting of three phase’s i.e. Inflammatory (1–5 days), Stabilization and recovery (6–10 days), Muscle strengthening (11–17 days). Assessments were done through various variables like pain, tenderness, swelling, local temperature, manual muscle testing (MMT) and range of motion (ROM) at different time points. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Wilcoxon matched pair test was used to assess within group results for subjective parameters and paired t-test (Dependent t-test) was used to assess for objective parameters. RESULT: The study showed that integrated treatment approach has given significant results in the parameters like pain, loss of function, tenderness, local temperature, MMT and ROM. CONCLUSION: Phase wise management through integrated protocol is effective in the management of common sports injuries.