Dance Injury Prevention

    Welcome!  My DPT Capstone project focused on the prevention of overuse injury among dancers.  I have been dancing for almost 20 years and still currently teach dance, so this is an area I have a lot of interest in and hope to specialize in upon graduation.  My upcoming clinical is a performing arts fellowship with a focus on dancers, so I’m really excited to learn more about this area in the clinic this summer! In EBP2, I focused my PICO question on the impact that supplemental training has on dance injury prevention.  For my Capstone, I expanded my topic to include other risk factors, both intrinsic and extrinsic.  In addition to physical fitness and supplemental training, I examined the influence of floor surface, footwear, training errors, nutritional and hormonal status, and biomechanical factors on injury prevention.   My expanded literature review for my Capstone can be found here:  Volkerding Capstone Lit Review

I examined the topic of injury prevention from multiple viewpoints, including the physical therapist, dancer, and dance instructor.  As a result, I developed a presentation for clinicians and a separate presentation for dancers and their teachers.  My goal was to educate all individuals involved and provide appropriate injury prevention recommendations.

The PowerPoint presentation I gave at Cincinnati Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center can be found here:  Volkerding_Dance Injury  I gave this presentation to the PT staff, which consisted of both clinicians and students.  This presentation focused on dance-related overuse injuries, risk factors for injury, and how to tailor a physical therapy examination and injury prevention program to dancers.

The detailed outline of the second presentation I gave to a large group of adolescent dancers (~35 students) and their teachers at Midwest Elite Dance Center can be found here:  Dancers Presentation Outline  Since I was unable to utilize PowerPoint, I created an educational handout for this audience, which can be found here:  Volkerding Dance Injury Handout  I was a little worried at first because I had to really adjust how I presented the information since the audience ranged from age 10 to adult.  I think it helps that I teach dance to young kids, so I have had a lot of practice simplifying explanations.  The students were enthusiastic, and I made it interactive so it would be more fun for them.  I used dry erase markers to write on the studio mirrors and called on kids to come up and write answers on the mirror as well.  I had the dancers stand up and demonstrate certain positions, feeling what was proper alignment and what was incorrect.  I also had them demonstrate stretches and taught them some new ones.

For my health literacy assignment, I gathered information from websites, PowerPoints, and the voice threads to create a handout in an appropriate format and reading level for the adolescent dancers.  I used the Fry formula and created a handout at the 5th grade reading level.  This was challenging, but I managed it after multiple revisions!  Upon completion, I evaluated it using the SAM evaluation tool, and I also took the information from the voice threads into consideration when I created the PowerPoint for the PT staff.  Further explanation of how I incorporated health literacy is in my health literacy assignment, which can be found here:  Volkerding_Health Literacy

As a feedback tool, I developed a simple questionnaire that was appropriate for the audiences at both of my presentations, which can be found here:  Capstone Presentation_Eval Form  A summary of the feedback I received may be found in this document:  Capstone Feedback  Overall, I received positive feedback from both audiences, as well as some suggestions for improvement.  If I were to improve one thing for my presentation for PTs, it would be to also include a handout as well.  If I were to improve one thing for the presentation for dancers and teachers, I would provide even more kinds of visual aids, especially if I was still unable to utilize PowerPoint.

Thanks for visiting my Capstone page!  I’d like to especially thank my project advisor, Mike Gross, as well as my committee members, Julie Jasontek and Stacie Galvin, for their expertise and feedback throughout the development of this project.