Original ResearchThe prevalence of generalized and syndromic hypermobility in elite Australian dancers
Section snippets
Background
Many dancers desire increased mobility in select joints to allow for aesthetically appealing ranges of movement. For some, this mobility is acquired through many years of specific training, for some through traumatic or repetitive injuries, while for others hypermobility is genetically inherited (Castori et al., 2017; Klemp & Learmonth, 1984). Regardless of the aetiology, the term Generalized Joint Hypermobility (GJH) is used to indicate individuals whose joints can actively or passively move
Methods
This cross-sectional cohort study was undertaken between June 2015 and February 2016 at two dance institutions: the West Australian Ballet and the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (Edith Cowan University), Western Australia. Ethical approval was obtained from two Human Research Ethics Committees: The University of Sydney (Protocol No.2015/465) and the Edith Cowan University (Project No.13174). All participants provided written-informed consent before commencement of data collection.
Results
Eighty-five dancers participated in the study representing 63% of the total invited sample. They comprised 57 pre-professional mixed genre dancers with at least 2 years full-time tertiary level ballet training (57% participation), and 28 professional ballet dancers (80% participation). No dancers were excluded based on eligibility. Demographic characteristics of gender, age, years of dancing and ethnicity are presented in Table 2. Using chi-square analysis, no difference was found between the
Discussion
High prevalence of both GJH and syndromic hypermobility was found, across all assessment tools, in our elite dancers. The 81% of pre-professional dancers with GJH, using the traditional Beighton cut-point of 4 or more, is higher than most previous reports of hypermobility among pre-professional dancers using the same cut-point, which ranged from 44% to 69% (Roussel et al., 2009; Ruemper & Watkins, 2012; Scheper et al., 2013). Interestingly, our finding of 89% GJH prevalence in the professional
Conclusions
There was a high prevalence of both GJH and JHS/EDS-HT among our cohort of elite dancers. The prevalence of GJH and JHS/EDS-HT heavily depended on the outcome measure used. The Beighton score was likely to over-estimate GJH prevalence with the commonly used cut-point of ≥4, when compared to the LLAS, which is superior for assessing lower limb hypermobility and discriminating side-to-side differences between legs. In addition, this cut-point does not account for the redundant criterion of
Conflicts of interest
None declared.
Ethical approval
Ethical approval was obtained from two Human Research Ethics Committees: The University of Sydney (Protocol No.2015/465) and the Edith Cowan University (Project No. 13174). All participants provided written-informed consent before commencement of data collection.
Funding
This work was supported by the BRIG grant from the Discipline of Biomedical Science, Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney (grant number 2015/001).
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all the dancers from the Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts and the West Australia Ballet for their participation and assistance during this study. Special thanks to Ms Jenny Woods, Physiotherapist for the West Australian Ballet, for her assistance in recruitment and support. Importantly.
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