Development and Feasibility of an Adolescent Dancer Screen.
Kynaston Schultz, Kathleen Sun Worrall, Zoe Tawa and 3 others
PMID 38439778WHAT IT FOUND
A dance screening protocol was feasible in 32 adolescent dancers, but technique scoring varied widely between raters.
It can flag impairments for wellness advice. It does not show that screening prevents injuries.
Key findings
01The paper reports 32 female adolescent dancers in two cohorts, with 17 in cohort one and 15 in cohort two.
02After process changes, cohort two screened seven to eight dancers per hour and all dancers completed all stations.
03Technique station rater agreement varied across items, with values reported for cohort one.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
Only 32 female adolescent dancers were screened, with 17 in cohort one and 15 in cohort two, so the feasibility findings are preliminary. The technique station had reliability ranging from poor to excellent, and the updates made for cohort two have not yet been analyzed statistically. The paper did not establish validity or predictive ability for injury; it mainly assessed development and feasibility. Injury surveillance was followed for only 14 weeks, and those results were not reported. The participants were female dancers from two pre-professional programs, and the cohorts differed in dance hours per week, so the screen may not apply to other dancers or training levels. Screening required multiple assessors and equipment, which may be hard to replicate in smaller settings.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that the screen prevents dance injuries. It tested feasibility and rater agreement in 32 dancers, and injury surveillance results were not reported.