Demografía

Dancers performing all types of dance sustain injuries. Percentages of dancers injured annually in professional dance companies range from 67% to 96%.15-17,19,20,112 Studies on injury rates in collegiate dancers are limited. Weigert et al.5, report that 30% of collegiate dancers were injured during the first semester and 36.4% of dancers were injured during the second semester based on site clinical data. Self-reported injury rates were higher in this group of collegiate dancers being 67% and 77% for the first and second semester respectively. This study suggests that collegiate dancers do not seek care for all of their injuries and sustain more injuries in the second semester.5

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That is consistent with literature on professional dancers, which also suggests self-reported injuries and musculoskeletal complaints have higher frequency than injuries resulting in a workers compensation or health insurance claim, and that injury has a cumulative effect over the dance season.6,16,20,22,23,113

Even young dancers become injured. In fact, 50% of dancers who begin dance at age eight will sustain at least one injury by the time they are 16 years old, with the most common injuries in the youngest dancers being tendinopathy of the foot and ankle, followed by knee injuries.106 A cross sectional study on 1,336 young dancers (mean age = 13.3 years, range 8-16 years) training in multiple dancer forms (ballet, modern, jazz), with at least 2 hours of ballet a week found that 42.6% of the dancers were injured as diagnosed through screening and subsequent evaluation by a physician specializing in dance medicine. The average hours of dance a week increased with age from 3.2 hours at 8 years, 8.8 hours at 13 years and 11.3 hours at 16 years.106 Another study on young dancers at an elite pre-professional ballet boarding school (mean age = 14.7 ± 1.9 years) had similar results. The annual percentage of young dancers injured range from 32% to 51%, with the cumulative percentage over the study being 42%. Injuries were diagnosed by a physical therapist specializing in dance medicine and counted when the dancer came to a formal physical therapy session. The annual injury rates ranged from 0.41 to 0.67 injuries per dancer per year, with a cumulative rate of 0.55 over the five years of the study. This study also investigated injuries per exposure, which included dance classes, rehearsals and performances per week (14 exposures), as well as injuries per hours of dance per week (20 hours). For each dancer there were 1.09 injuries per 1,000 exposures and 0.77 injuries per 1,000 hours of dance.25

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The incidence of injury increases in professional dancers. The highest injury rates reported have come from a recent prospective study, which tracked the injuries in a professional ballet company among 52 dancers (27 females, 25 males) for one year. This included 46 work weeks of dance with an average of 31.5 hours of dance during rehearsal periods and 35.5 hours during performance periods. Injuries were diagnosed by the company’s physical therapist and included “any injury that prevented a dancer from taking full part in all dance-related activities that would normally be required of them for a period equal to or greater than 24 hours after the injury was sustained.”20,114,115 There was an overall incidence of 4.44 injuries per 1,000 hours of dance. There were no differences in the injury incidence between females (4.14) and males (4.76).20 The incidence in this study is higher than previously reported in professional ballet dancers (3.2 injuries per dancer). 19 Unfortunately, this study did not report if these incidences were per hours of dance or exposures. An eight year study of a comprehensive rehabilitation program and its effects on injury incidence was completed on a professional modern dance company. Compared to other companies discussed, this one was smaller (n=30 dancers each year) with a 41 week season. For the first two years of the study no intervention was applied and the average annual percentage of dancers injured was 87%. Injury incidence was found to be much lower than reported in other studies on professional dancers and was 0.52 injures per dancer per 1,000 hours of dancing. Injuries included in the analyses were those resulting in financial outlay (workers compensation or personal health insurance claim) or time loss from dancing beyond the day of injury.22 To the authors’ knowledge, no studies have reported injury incidence per hours or exposures in collegiate dancers.

The differences in injury incidence among these studies may be due to injury occurrence variation from year to year, training and performance schedules, or physical fitness and health

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profiles in the dancers in the different companies. Another important factor is the injury definition. Some authors may include injuries that other authors would consider only a complaint rather than injury. Some are injuries that result in any modification of activity and others may only include those that result in cessation of activity. This difference has been discussed as a problem in dance medicine research and a call for a common injury definition has been made.4 Another factor that could potentially alter the number of injuries reported is the access of the dancers in the company being studied to medical care and/or research team tracking injury. Ojofeitimi et al.22, discussed that dancers with onsite medical care tend to seek care for more musculoskeletal complaints, with potential subsequent diagnosis more often that those without readily accessible care.22 All injury rates, however, are very high demonstrating the importance of preventing injuries and providing sound rehabilitation for dancers.