Characteristics and prevalence of musculoskeletal injury in professional and non-professional ballet dancers

BACKGROUND Ballet is a high-performance activity that requires an advanced level of technical skills. Ballet places great stress on tendons, muscles, bones, and joints and may act directly as a trigger of injury by overuse. OBJECTIVES 1) to describe the main types of injuries and affected areas related to classical ballet and 2) to compare the frequency of musculoskeletal injuries among professional and non-professional ballet dancers, considering possible gender differences among the professional dancers. METHOD A total of 110 questionnaires were answered by professional and non-professional dancers. The questionnaire contained items related to the presence of injury, the regions involved, and the mechanism of the injury. RESULTS We observed a high frequency of musculoskeletal injuries, with ankle sprains accounting for 69.8% of injuries in professional dancers and 42.1% in non-professional dancers. Pirouettes were the most frequent mechanism of injury in professional dancers, accounting for 67.9% of injuries, whereas in the non-professional dancers, repetitive movement was the most common mechanism (28.1%). Ankle sprains occurred in 90% of the women's injuries, and muscle sprains occurred in 54.5% of the men's injuries. The most frequent injury location was the ankle joint in both sexes among the professional dancers, with 67.6% in women and 40.9% in men. CONCLUSIONS The identification of the mechanism of injury and time of practice may contribute to better therapeutic action aimed at the proper function of the dancers' bodies and improved performance by these athletes.