Abstract
Background:
Dance plays a significant but under appreciated impact on society. Approximately 10,400,000 children participate in some form of dance each year, resulting in about 25,000 dance related injuries presenting to the ED yearly. This study aims to provide a comprehensive and up to date investigation of pediatric injuries resulting from dance, comparing the most common body regions, final diagnoses, and mechanisms of injury, further stratified by age and sex. Insert text.
Hypothesis:
Dance-related injury presentation will differ between ages, sexes, and pre- and post-COVID-19 periods.
Methods:
This descriptive epidemiologic analysis utilized the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) between January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2023 to identify all pediatric age patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) for dance-associated injuries. Variables included demographics, body region injured, final diagnosis, and mechanism of injury. Patients were stratified by sex (male vs. female) and age groups (children (<10 years) and adolescents (10-17)). Injury trends were further stratified based on their occurrence during or after the COVID-19 pandemic., Linear regressions were used to analyze trends, Chi-squared analyses and post-hoc residual analyses were used to analyze categorical variables. Statistical significance was set to p<0.05.
Results:
A total of 3,600 (NE=93,062) cases were analyzed. There were 38,520 (41.2%) cases in the COVID group and 57,567 (58.8%) in the post COVID group. Overall, the most injured body regions were knees (20.8%), ankles (15.8%), and heads (13.3%). The most common final diagnoses were sprains/strains (31.4%), fractures (12.3%), and contusions/abrasions (8.0%). The most common mechanisms of injury included impacts with the floor (37.0%), ankle rolling (13.5%), and non-contact movements (10.4%). Male athletes more commonly injured their head (23.7%) compared to female athletes (11.5%). Compared to adolescents, children were more likely to sustain sprains/strains (35.5% vs 18.3%), injure knees (26.2% vs 5.5%) and ankles (17.5% vs 10.4%), and become injured due to ankle rolling (14.4% vs 8.1%) and non-contact movements (11.8% vs 2.3%). Adolescent dancers more often sustained fractures than pediatric dancers (14.4% vs 11.3%) (p<0.05).
Conclusion:
Knees and ankles are the most commonly injured body regions in youth dancers. Athletes commonly experience sprains/strains, fractures, and contusions/abrasions, often due to impact with the floor, ankle rolling, and non-contact movements. Females and younger children are more likely to sustain lower extremity sprains/strains, whereas males and adolescents more frequently sustain fractures. These findings may guide sports medicine societies to create specific and targeted injury prevention strategies for dancers of different ages and sexes.