Injuries across a pre-professional ballet and contemporary dance tertiary training program: A retrospective cohort study.

OBJECTIVES: The study aims to analyse the incidence of medical attention injuries, subsequent injuries, and the median time to injury, across tertiary ballet and contemporary dance training programs. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort. METHODS: Consenting ballet and contemporary dance students completing the third/final year of two tertiary programs were included. The three-year programs consisted of six semesters. Access was granted to onsite physiotherapy notes, timetables, and academic enrolment. Injury was defined as requiring medical attention. Injury and exposure data were extracted, injuries coded for location and tissue, and subsequent injuries, occurring after an initial index injury, categorised. Mean, standard deviation, range, injury incidence, risk and rate ratios, proportions and Kaplan-Meier curves were calculated to report participant characteristics, and injury patterns across three years of the dance program. RESULTS: All 17 students (mean age=20.7 years; standard deviation=1.32) from one program consented to participate, of which all were injured across the three-year program, with 2.71 (95% confidence interval: 2.22, 3.20) injury incidence rate per 1000h, and increasing injury incidences seen across the program. The most injured site and tissue were the ankle (17.65%) and muscle (23.53%) respectively. 74.86% of subsequent injuries were different (affecting a different location and tissue), and 4.88% reinjuries (affecting the same location, tissue, and structure after recovery). The median time to the first injury was seven weeks in the first semester, and later in subsequent year levels. CONCLUSIONS: Increasing injury incidences were seen across the program. Most subsequent injuries were different from previous injuries in this cohort. Future research should use exposure measures beyond hours (i.e. intensity) and consider subsequent injuries.

Injuries during transition periods across the year in pre-professional and professional ballet and contemporary dancers: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To consider the association of injuries with transition periods in the dance year, i.e., when dancers return at the start of the year, and when they transition from rehearsal to performance periods. METHODS: Six electronic databases were searched to November 2019. All English language peer-reviewed studies, of any study design investigating ballet and contemporary pre-professional and professional dance populations were included. Only those studies reporting on the timing of injury were included. RESULTS: Fifteen cohort and two case-series studies were included. A meta-analysis of seven studies revealed the rate of injuries to be significantly higher for the second and third months (1.52; 95% confidence interval [CI]:1.11-2.08; 1.26; 95%CI:1.07-1.48 respectively) after the return to dance. Two further studies report more injuries up to Week 13 of the year. One study showed an increase in injured dancers at three and four weeks after transition from rehearsals to a performance season. Four studies show an increase in injuries at performance times. CONCLUSIONS: Meta-analyses of seven studies shows the second and third months after returning to dance have a significantly higher rate of injuries. More research is needed to quantify training loads in dance. Practitioners should be cognisant of the higher injury rates during periods of transition and consider modifying load, as it is a potential contributing factor.

Psychological predictors of injury among elite athletes.

OBJECTIVES: To establish injury rates among a population of elite athletes, to provide normative data for psychological variables hypothesised to be predictive of sport injuries, and to establish relations between measures of mood, perceived life stress, and injury characteristics as a precursor to introducing a psychological intervention to ameliorate the injury problem. METHODS: As part of annual screening procedures, athletes at the Queensland Academy of Sport report medical and psychological status. Data from 845 screenings (433 female and 412 male athletes) were reviewed. Population specific tables of normative data were established for the Brunel mood scale and the perceived stress scale. RESULTS: About 67% of athletes were injured each year, and about 18% were injured at the time of screening. Fifty percent of variance in stress scores could be predicted from mood scores, especially for vigour, depression, and tension. Mood and stress scores collectively had significant utility in predicting injury characteristics. Injury status (current, healed, no injury) was correctly classified with 39% accuracy, and back pain with 48% accuracy. Among a subset of 233 uninjured athletes (116 female and 117 male), five mood dimensions (anger, confusion, fatigue, tension, depression) were significantly related to orthopaedic incidents over the preceding 12 months, with each mood dimension explaining 6-7% of the variance. No sex differences in these relations were found. CONCLUSIONS: The findings support suggestions that psychological measures have utility in predicting athletic injury, although the relatively modest explained variance highlights the need to also include underlying physiological indicators of allostatic load, such as stress hormones, in predictive models.