**2. Context**

Preparing this work we wanted to identify a context characterized by muscle injury in an adult person, skeletally mature, involved in sport activities. The target population was identified in high level professional athletes, but it is obvious that the fallout application in clinical practice involves above all amateur athletes, including different sports from soccer. It seems that the sports involving sprinting, acceleration, deceleration, rapid change of direction and jumping (e.g. soccer, American football, rugby, etc.) may exposed athletes to an increased risk of muscle injuries.

programs"(TW) OR Treatment(Tw) OR "Physical therapy modalities"(Mesh) OR "Therapeu‐ tics"(Mesh)) AND ("Treatment outcome"(Mesh) OR "Muscle strength"(Mesh) OR "Recovery of

Conservative Treatment of Muscle Injuries: From Scientific Evidence to Clinical Practice

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/56550

173

Filters: Randomized Controlled Trial; Systematic Reviews; Guideline; published in the last 10

Initially, 488 papers were identified for potential inclusion. After an analysis about the internal requirements of the studies, only five reports met the inclusion searching criteria. "The Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) Scale was used by two independent reviewers to assess the methodological quality of each included full text article" (Centre for Evidence-Based Physiotherapy. Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) Scale. Available at: http://

To view the studies included and excluded from this review of the literature see appendix 2.

From the analysis of the few items found arises that there is no research on therapeutic interventions of muscle injuries. There are only a few studies on hamstring muscle injuries,

A recent Cochrane review (Mason et al., 2012) highlights the lack of studies about the thera‐ peutic interventions of muscle injuries, especially that there are not right drawings studies, precisely Randomized Controlled Trials. The authors contend that at the moment there is limited evidence to suggest an increased frequency of daily stretching to reduce recovery time

Some preliminary scientific evidence available, suggests exercises to improve movement dysfunction. Another recent systematic review (Reurink et al., 2012) demonstrates that the therapeutic interventions for acute hamstring injuries such as stretching, agility and trunk

Sherry and Best (2004) performed a prospective randomized study to compare two rehabili‐ tation programs for the treatment of acute hamstring muscle injury. The study concludes that a rehabilitation program which consisted of exercises of agility and trunk stabilization was more effective than a program emphasizing isolated stretching and selective strengthening

Following a comprehensive appraisal of the available literature five studies were included in this systematic review. Our findings suggest a lack of research studies that addresses the conservative management of muscle injuries. All five studies included in this review concern the hamstring muscle injuries. As a consequence this limits the possibility to effectively generalize these findings to the clinical settings. The limited number of relevant articles as well

function"(Mesh) OR "Evidence based medicine"(Mesh))

For more details on the search strategy see Appendix 1.

www.pedro.fhs.usyd.edu.au/scale\_item.html.)

which may not provide strong scientific evidence.

and the percentage of recurrence.

exercises of the hamstring muscles.

**3.4. Discussion**

stabilization exercises have limited evidence.

years

**3.3. Results**

The choice of a conservative treatment program for muscle injuries should be based on its effectiveness, its cost-effectiveness analysis, as well as on the expectations and aims of the athlete.
