Dance Medicine

Objective: To determine whether there is an association between hypermobility and sports injury. Methods: A quantitative observational approach using a cross-sectional survey was adopted. Individuals were identified as hypermobile or not. All participants were asked to complete two questionnaires: one asking demographic information and the other injury-specific. Fisher's exact test was used for statistical analysis. Results: 114 individuals participated in the study, 62 women and 52 men...

Understanding the anatomy of the ankle ligaments is important for correct diagnosis and treatment. Ankle ligament injury is the most frequent cause of acute ankle pain. Chronic ankle pain often finds its cause in laxity of one of the ankle ligaments. In this pictorial essay, the ligaments around the ankle are grouped, depending on their anatomic orientation, and each of the ankle ligaments is discussed in detail.

Ballet dancers are high-performance athletes who are particularly susceptible to a wide variety of musculoskeletal injuries. However, they are relatively understudied, and data on their injury rates are lacking. This retrospective study features the largest aggregate data on professional ballet dancers to date and aims to identify the most common diagnoses and areas of injury in this unique population to better direct preventative and clinical practices. The study encompassed a 10-year period from January 2000 to December 2010 of dancers from a single company...

The objective of this study was to assemble and synthesize the best available literature from 2004 to 2008 on musculoskeletal injury and pain in dancers. MEDLINE and CINAHL were the primary sources of data. Indexed terms such as dance, dancer, dancing, athletic injuries, occupational injuries, sprains and strains, musculoskeletal diseases, bone density, menstruation disturbances, and eating disorders were used to search the databases. Citations were screened for relevance using a priori criteria, and relevant studies were critically reviewed for scientific merit by the best-evidence synthesis method...

Summer dance intensive programs are an integral part of many serious dancers' training. The risk and rate of injury in this setting have not been well studied. The goal of this data analysis is to detail the epidemiology of dance injuries reported during a summer dance intensive over a consecutive 3 year period. Data collection included information regarding the number of evaluation and treatment sessions conducted at the program's walk-in clinic, body regions injured, whether the injuries were recurrences of pre-existing conditions or newly sustained during the intensive, and at what point in the program they were recorded...

As the technical performance demands of dance increase, professional companies and pre-professional schools are implementing pre-season screenings that require an efficient, cost effective way to measure dancer aerobic fitness. The aim of this study was to assess an accelerated 3-minute step test (112 beats·min(-1)) by comparing it to the well-studied YMCA step test (96 beats·min(-1)) and a benchmark standard, an incremental treadmill test, using heart rate (HR) and oxygen consumption (VO2) as variables...

Fatigue is often thought of as any transient exercise-induced reduction of work capacity. In fact, it is a complex phenomenon caused by overlapping and interacting peripheral and central mechanisms. There is a known relationship between fatigue, diminished performance, and injury. This paper reviews what is currently known about fatigue in the current literature.

The aim of this study was to examine the acute effects of static stretching (SS), dynamic stretching (DS), and a combined (static and dynamic) stretch protocol on vertical jump (VJ) height, balance, and range of motion (ROM) in dancers. A no-stretch (NS) intervention acted as the control condition. It was hypothesized that the DS and combination stretch protocols would have more positive effects on performance indicators than SS and NS, and SS would have negative effects as compared to the NS condition. Ten trained female dancers (27 ± 5 years of age) were tested on four occasions...