An Injury Prevention Program for Professional Ballet: A Randomized Controlled Investigation

This research, conducted at the Department of Orthopedics and Sports Medicine at the Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas (USA), investigated the effectiveness of an injury prevention program (IPP) designed to reduce the risk of injury in professional ballet dancers.

The primary outcome was the number of injuries sustained and reported per subject during one year (July, 2016 - August, 2017). The research group designed the IPP targeting the core, hip abductor, hip flexor and hip extensor muscles.

Of the 52 dancers (belonging to the Houston Ballet company) eligible for the study, 39 decided to participate. However, 11 dancers in the intervention group did not complete the IPP for at least 4 consecutive weeks, so they were not included in the analysis.

 

Control group

Intervention group

Mean age

26.6 ± 4.0 years

27.2 ± 5.7 years

Gender

10 females, 9 males

6 females, 5 males

The results of the injury rate suggest an HR of 0.18 (P = 0.022; 95% CI, 0.04-0.78), which implies an injury rate that is 82% lower in the intervention group than in the controls. These results suggest that an PPI performed for as little as 4 weeks may reduce the rate of injury and increase injury-free time over the course of 1 year.

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