Subsequent injury analysis in an Australian tertiary dance training program: A 3-year retrospective cohort study

Subsequent injury analysis in an Australian tertiary dance training program: A 3-year retrospective cohort study

Background: Dance students train for long hours from a young age, utilising movements requiring extreme ranges of motion for aesthetic performance. A high prevalence of injury exists in dance with Cahalan and colleagues (2018) reporting 29 contemporary dance students sustaining 155 injuries in a training year, indicating dancers often get injured more than once. A systematic review by Kenny et al. (2015) shows previous injury to be a risk factor for future injury in pre-professional dance. This paper aims to report on subsequent injury across participation in a three-year tertiary dance training program.
Method: Retrospective analysis was conducted of physiotherapy records of consenting participants presenting to an onsite complimentary injury clinic across a three-year tertiary dance training program in Australia. Injury data were extracted, with injury defined as requiring medical attention and presenting to the onsite clinic, regardless of time loss. A unique injury episode was recorded if there was report of worsening of symptoms, regardless of recovery. All injuries were coded via the Orchard Sports Injury Classification System, and categorised using the Subsequent Injury Categorisation 2.0 (SIC-2.0) tool from Toohey et al. (2018). Percentages were calculated for each SIC-2.0 category, and compared across semesters of the program.
Results: Seventeen participants consented to participate (100 % participation; mean age to graduate 20.7 years; SD = 1.32; range = 19–25; 16 female, 1 male). A total of 119 injuries were coded and categorised across the three-year program, with each participant sustaining at least one injury (range 1 to 14 injuries per participant). 75 % of injuries occurred at a different site and of a different nature. Less than 5 % of injuries were recurrent, occurring after recovery, to the same site, of the same nature, side, and structure. A trend was observed regarding recurrent injuries decreasing across the duration of the program.
Discussion: Recurrent injuries were fewer in this investigation compared to Ekegren et al. (2014), who studied time loss injuries in a pre-professional ballet cohort, and Lee et al. (2017), who studied medical attention injuries in a combined cohort of ballet and contemporary pre-professional dance students. Similar findings of injuries to a different site and of a different nature exist in rugby sevens, and water polo. This investigation shows the majority of injuries are different to previous injuries, and that recurrent injuries show a trend to decrease across tertiary dance studies.

Files associated with this item cannot be displayed due to copyright restrictions.