Injury Prevention

The Primary Purposes of why the screening should be mandatory are to:

• Detect potentially life-threatening or disabling medical or musculoskeletal conditions that may limit a dancer’s safe participation
• Detect medical or musculoskeletal conditions that may predispose dancers to injury and /or illness during their season

The Secondary Purposes of why the screening is essential are to:

• Determine the general health of the dancers
• Assess the fitness level of the dancers
• Council the dancers by creating intervention recommendations based on the screening information
• Utilize a standardized screening tool and associated protocols to assess dancer health

Benefits of Standardization

The decision to create one standardized protocol for all companies is based on the premise that there are basic principles of functional movement common to all dancers. Likewise, there are basic aspects of general health, emotional status, and nutrition that are common to all people, and problems in these areas may increase the dancer’s risk of injury and ill health. Where a specific type of company differs in the style of their work, additional assessments are encouraged. In no way do additional tests prevent pooling of the basic standardized data.

The following are only some of the ways that such data can be used:

• Establishing normative data on body types and physiologic variants for different forms of dance, thereby having the information to:
  • Develop parameters that guide young dancers.
  • Develop strategies for preventing and treating injury.
• Recognizing patterns of injury in regard to variables such as:
  • length of season
  • timing within the season
  • type of repertoire
  • type of flooring

DOWNLOAD DOCUMENTS (pdf format):
Overview of Annual Post-Hire Health Screen for Professional Dancers
Nutrition Guidelines

Thank you for your interest in dancer welfare and the Dance/USA Taskforce on Dancer Health. For professional companies interested in the Taskforce Screening Tool and the Guidelines for Administering the Screen, please contact directly:

Nancy Kadel, MD
Chair, Dance/USA Taskforce on Dancer Health
or
Heather Southwick, P.T.
Vice-Chair, Dance/USA Taskforce on Dancer Health

ABOUT THE DANCER HEALTH TASKFORCE