Relationships Among Injury History, Flexibility And Fms Score In College Dance Majors

Abstract

Dancers are at an increased risk of low back pain (LBP) and lower extremity (LE) musculoskeletal injuries due to repetitive high velocity end range movements. Previous injuries, movement pattern inefficiency (poor movement control), and excessive flexibility are suggested contributors to injury in dancers. The Functional Movement Screen (FMS) is a tool used to assess functional movement performance with emerging evidence for injury prediction. PURPOSE: To determine the relationship between injury history, total body flexibility and movement pattern performance in college dance majors. METHODS: Twenty-one, currently injury free, female dance majors (mean age: 18.1 ± 0.74, height: 161.3 ± 5.5 cm, weight: 57.6 ± 8.4 kg), completed the FMS (0-21), a flexibility assessment (Beighton score; 0-9), and an injury history questionnaire. Spearman’s rho (rs) correlations were used to assess the hypotheses that a higher number of dance related injuries and history of LBP would be moderately associated with excessive flexibility (higher Beighton score) and poorer functional movement patterns (lower FMS score). RESULTS: The median and range of the FMS and Beighton scores were: FMS (15, 5-19); Beighton (1, 0-5). The mean number of dance related injuries were 1.8 ± 1.3 (71.8% in the LE). 17 of 21 had a previous LE injury while eight (17.9%) dancers had a history of LBP. There was no relationship between history of LBP and FMS (rs = -.02, p= .94) or Beighton score (rs = .16, p= .48), and the number of dance injuries and Beighton score (rs = .06, p = .78). Beighton and FMS scores were not significantly associated (rs = .27, p =.24). However, a significant and moderate negative association existed between FMS score and number of dance injuries (rs = - .57, p = .007). CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggests that an increased number of previous injuries is associated with poorer movement pattern control in dancers and explains 25% of the variance in the FMS scores. Over 70% of reported injuries were LE and FMS heavily assesses LE movement patterns. Further studies are needed to examine the utility of the FMS for identifying injury risk in dancers.