Knee Injury Patterns in Young Irish Dancers

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To characterize knee injury patterns in Irish dancers. METHODS: A retrospective chart review was performed for Irish dancers under age 19 who presented with knee injuries to the sports medicine or orthopedic clinic from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2010. Data were collected on all knee injuries partially or directly related to Irish dance. Injury was defined as dance-related pain or damage to the structures in the knee that resulted in evaluation in the clinic. Survey data were collected to determine the number of different schools/studios represented by the dancers in the study. RESULTS: Sixty-seven Irish dancers with 86 knee injuries were evaluated. Half (50.7%) of these patients received more than one diagnosis during these visits. Overuse injuries accounted for 90.7% of knee injuries. Time to presentation ranged from less than 1 week to over 1 year. There was a significant difference in time to presentation, with traumatic injuries being evaluated sooner than overuse injuries. The most common diagnoses, accounting for 53.5% of injuries, were patellar tracking disorders, including patellofemoral syndrome, hypermobile patella, and patellar subluxation. CONCLUSION: In Irish dance overuse injuries represent the great majority of knee injuries, and patellofemoral tracking disorders are the most common diagnosis. For many dancers, there is often a delay of weeks to months between the onset of symptoms and evaluation in clinic. Prevention programs could potentially eliminate a large portion of knee pain experienced by young Irish dancers.

Patellofemoral Kinematics and Tibial Tuberosity–Trochlear Groove Distances in Female Adolescents With Patellofemoral Pain

“…1, 3, 11, 31 This is particularly true among adolescent females (10 – 19 years old), where PFP often prevents involvement in youth sports and other forms of physical activity. 4, 30, 34, 42 Since an active lifestyle is required for maintaining physical health and many adolescents rely on sports for social acceptance and as a pathway to higher education, PFP may affect a child developmentally, emotionally, socially, economically, and physically. Further, persistent PFP was recently found to be the norm and not the exception in an adolescent cohort with PFP at two year follow-up; and evidence suggests that PFP in young patients may predispose them to long-term sequelae such as osteoarthritis.…”

Pain and injury in adolescent dancers: systematic review

“…Beasley et al 13 67 Irish dance 86 injuries, 90.70% on knee, related to overtraining. Among injuries: patellofemoral syndrome, patellar hypermobility and patellar subluxation.…”

“…It is important to highlight that each article has presented an operational definition of the term, so that there has been no confusion about what was being studied. Other studies have defined injury as we have understood, describing serious physical and psychological problems with dancers [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] . Table 1 shows that 10 out of 15 articles reported injuries, while remaining five articles have addressed pain or other contents unrelated to injuries.…”

“…In these studies with dancers, dealing with pain seems to be more by avoidance of the problem than by an effective search for solution. Beasley et al 13 have identified major delay of dancers before looking for a physician or other health professional after the first symptoms of pain. This is explained by the fear of being forced to stop dancing, being an indicator of physical exercise dependence, in addition to concern with financial requirements, in case of professional dancers.…”

Surgical Correction of Non-traumatic Patella Maltracking. Midterm Clinical Follow-up

“…9 It has been associated with young females engaged in dancing. 10 If intra-articular loose bodies or chondral injury are ruled out, initial treatment is non-operative. 11 Anti-inflammatory drugs, initial immobilization, and physiotherapy are the primary modalities in use.…”