Dance-related musculoskeletal injury leading to forced time-loss in elite pre professional dancers – a retrospective study

Abstract

ABSTRACT Young ballet dancers place themselves at risk of injury on a daily basis, often pushing their training beyond limits, ultimately leading to pain and injury. When signs and symptoms of injury are ignored, functional ability and overall health may be seriously compromised and absence from dance practice may forcibly take place. Objectives Describe the epidemiology of dance-related musculoskeletal injury leading to forced time-loss in elite pre-professional dancers and provide descriptive data on the prevalence concerning diagnoses, location, and injury type, stratified by gender and skill level. Methods Retrospective cohort, over a 3-year period on a full‐time pre-professional Portuguese dance school featuring 70 both gender students with a mean age of 14.87 years. A total of 110 injuries were analyzed. Non‐parametric statistics were used. Results The most prevalent diagnosis leading to forced time-loss in female dancers were Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome (MTSS), 14.29%, and Posterior Ankle Impingement Syndrome (PAIS), 7.14%, whereas in male dancers these were Hallux Sprain, 17.50%, and Lumbar Spine Joint Injuries, 7.50%. Differences were found in injuries’ anatomical location between genders and in Incidence Proportion and Clinical Incidence between skill levels. 72.20% of the chronic injuries and 50.00% of the acute injuries occurred in Level III students. Conclusions With respect to forced time-loss injuries, male dancers were found to sustain more acute traumatic injuries and female dancers overuse, respectively, sprains and MTSS and PAIS. Identifying which injuries are most likely to lead to forced time-loss may be useful for helping health-care professionals in clinical decision-making and in developing more effective injury prevention and management strategies.