Injury incidence and severity in Chinese pre-professional dancers: A prospective weekly monitoring survey.

OBJECTIVES: To determine dance injury incidence and severity in full-time Chinese pre-professional dancers. STUDY DESIGN: Prospective weekly online monitoring survey. METHODS: Respondents were asked to record all dance-injury incidences between September 2020 and July 2021 using a remote weekly self-report injury monitoring tool. An inclusive definition of injury was used in this study to record all injuries, even if they didn't cause a cessation of training. Data were excluded if respondents completed <90 % of the survey period and had over 3 consecutive weeks of missing data. RESULTS: 450 individuals from 11 different schools were included in the analyses. A total of 1157 injuries were reported over a 30-week academic year. Injury prevalence was 64.9 % and injury incidence was 5.51 injuries per 1000 h. Forty-eight percent of the injuries were minor severity and 41 % were of moderate severity, and the main injury sites were knees (0.89/1000 h), lower back (0.80/1000 h), feet (0.58/1000 h) and groin (0.56/1000 h). Female dancers reported significantly higher injury prevalence and injury incidence, and higher rates of moderate to severe injuries than males. The university group reported higher injury incidence than the adolescent group (p < 0.05), whereas the latter reported higher rates of moderate to severe injuries than the former (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The injury incidence found in this study (5.1 injuries/1000 h) is higher than most previous sets of data. Female dancers are at a higher risk of injury and reported higher levels of injury severity than male dancers, especially for the female adolescent group.

Online Dance Injury Monitoring: The Efficacy of Weekly Reporting and Respondent Compliance Over a 30-Week Period.

BACKGROUND: Previous injury survey recall methods often use one-off questionnaires with varying periods of recall. These methods have proven to show injury incidence inaccuracies and limited information on injury etiology. PURPOSE: The present study aimed to examine the efficacy of a remote weekly self-report injury incidence and etiology tool. METHODS: Two online questionnaires were developed based on the "Fit to Dance 2" survey and sent to volunteers. The first questionnaire was sent once and asked for complete injury history information. The second questionnaire was sent to each respondent on a weekly basis and it focused on new injuries and their causes and whether injuries that occurred in previous weeks were still affecting their dancing. The online survey was opened for full-time dance students from September 2020 to July 2021. All weekly data for each respondent were combined with a unique reference code using their account names, students' numbers, and schools' names. The proportion of participants who drop out is defined as the measurement of outcome. RESULTS: A total of 756 respondents engaged in the survey from 16 different Chinese dance schools; the drop-out rate was 70.1%, with student respondents under 18 years old having a slightly lower drop-out rate than adult respondents (69%vs 71%). 33 respondents (4.4%) who completed all 30 weeks survey. These data allow other researchers to examine respondent compliance rates from a weekly survey. CONCLUSION: A reminder system and teacher engagement could potentially increase the response rate. For frequent completion questionnaires the design needs to be streamlined to increase compliance. It is concluded that the researchers would need to weigh reduced completion rates (<100%) against data efficacy to achieve generalizability.

Evidence for structural control of mare volcanism in lunar compressional tectonic settings.

One of the long-standing enigmas for lunar tectonic-thermal evolution is the spatiotemporal association of contractional wrinkle ridges and basaltic volcanism in a compressional regime. Here, we show that most of the 30 investigated volcanic (eruptive) centers are linked to contractional wrinkle ridges developed above preexisting basin basement-involved ring/rim normal faults. Based on the tectonic patterns associated with the basin formation and mass loading and considering that during the subsequent compression the stress was not purely isotropic, we hypothesize that tectonic inversion produced not only thrust faults but also reactivated structures with strike-slip and even extensional components, thus providing a valid mechanism for magma transport through fault planes during ridge faulting and folding of basaltic layers. Our findings suggest that lunar syn-tectonic mare emplacement along reactivated inherited faults provides important records of basin-scale structure-involved volcanism, which is more complex than previously considered.

The Efficacy of Physical Fitness Training on Dance Injury: A Systematic Review.

Greater levels of physical fitness have been linked to improved dance performance and decreased injury incidence. The aim was to review the efficacy of physical fitness training on dance injury. The electronic databases CINAHL, Cochrane Library, PubMed, Web of Science, MEDLINE, China National Knowledge Infrastructure were used to search peer-reviewed published articles in English or Chinese. Studies were scored using Strength of the Evidence for a Conclusion and a risk bias checklist. 10 studies met the inclusion criteria from an initial 2450 publications. These studies offered physical fitness training for professional (n=3) and pre-professional dancers (n=7), participant sample size ranged between 5 to 62, ages from 11 to 27 years, and most participants were females. Assessment scores were classified as Fair (n=1), Limited (n=7), and Expert Opinion Only (n=2) and risk of bias scores ranged from 22.7-68.2%. After physical fitness training, 80% of studies reported significant benefits in injury rate, the time between injuries, pain intensity, pain severity, missed dance activities and injury count. This review suggests that physical fitness training could have a beneficial effect on injury incidence in dance. The evidence is limited by the current study methodologies.

Prevalence and Risk Factors of Dance Injury During COVID-19: A Cross-Sectional Study From University Students in China.

Objectives: Although coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has transformed the training environment of dancers worldwide, little is known on how this has affected injury prevalence, causes, and risk factors. Methods: An online investigation involving Chinese full-time dance students was conducted (September-November 2020), which covered two 6-month periods just before and during the first COVID-19 lockdown. Results: 2086 students (19 ± 2.4 years) responded to the investigation. Injury prevalence dropped from 39.6% (before the lockdown) to 16.5% (during the lockdown) (p < 0.01). It was noted that a significant increase in injury severity during the lockdown was caused due to a 4.1% increase in moderate-to-severe injuries (p < 0.05). During the lockdown, the injuries on the lower back, feet, and shoulders decreased significantly (p < 0.01), but the knee, ankle, and groin/hip joint injuries remained the same. Fatigue and the recurrence of an old injury remained as the top two perceived causes of an injury between the two periods with the increase in an unsuitable floor (p < 0.01), a cold environment (p < 0.05), and set/props (p < 0.05). The fatigue degree of students decreased (p < 0.01) and their hours of sleep increased (p < 0.01) during the lockdown. Binary Logistic Regression analysis indicated that dance injury is associated with fatigue, the hours of sleep, and the actions taken if they suspect an injury during the lockdown (p < 0.05), but is only related to the time set aside for a cooldown and age before the lockdown period (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Although injury prevalence dropped significantly during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Chinese dance students, the main dance injury characteristics remained the same. Decreased fatigue and longer hours of sleep could explain the aforementioned drop in injury prevalence during the lockdown.

Fit to Dance Survey: Elements of Lifestyle and Injury Incidence in Chinese Dancers.

The Fit to Dance survey has been conducted using primarily Western participants and has provided foundation data for other studies. The purpose of the current study was to replicate the Fit to Dance 2 survey focusing on features of health and injuries in pre-professional and professional Chinese dancers of different genres. The survey was translated into Chinese with several new and modified questions. The survey was posted online for a 3-month period. A total of 1,040 individuals (82.8% female) completed the questionnaire, including 871 dance students (83.7%) and 169 professional dancers (16.3%), with focus in Chinese folk dance (44.4%), Chinese classical dance (25.6%), ballet (10.2%), and contemporary dance (9.8%). Compared to the Fit to Dance 2 survey, alcohol consumption (29% vs 82%; p<0.01) and smoking (13% vs 21%; p<0.05) were significantly less in Chinese dancers, but a higher percentage reported using weight-reducing eating plans (57% vs 23%; p<0.01) or having psychological issues with food (27% vs 24%; p<0.05). Reported injuries in a 12-month period prior to data collection were significantly lower in Chinese dancers (49% vs 80%; p<0.01). The type of injury (muscle and joint/ligament) and perceived cause of injury (fatigue, overwork, and reoccurrence of an old injury) were the same in both the current and previous survey. Mean injury rate ranged from 4.9 injuries/dancer (contemporary) to 3.4 injuries/dancer (Chinese folk dance), which is comparable to previously reported data on Western dance populations. This report provides the first comprehensive data on the health and injury incidence of Chinese dancers.