World Dance Day | Beware! This "dangerous move" can cause disability, but many people actually think it is good for children.

Today is World Dance Day .

In recent years, dance has become a popular choice for children to improve their talents. However, due to the uneven professionalism of teachers in extracurricular classes, some interest classes, in order to show their "professionalism", let children perform many "flexible stretching" movements that have safety risks .

For example, there was a trending search event before: "5-year-old girl became disabled due to bending down while dancing":

Image source: Weibo screenshot

What is even more worrying is that incidents of "serious injuries caused by bending down" or even lifelong disability are not isolated cases.

Taking the opportunity of World Dance Day, Science Popularization China would like to talk about the harm of "bending down" to young children from a medical perspective, as well as how to protect children's relatively fragile limbs and avoid dangerous actions in other scenarios.

Whether your child is currently learning dance or is preparing to learn dance, they should read today's article carefully and forward it to friends in need.

We must also remind our relatives and friends: Letting children exercise is a good thing, but it must comply with the objective laws of physical development . Don’t make big mistakes and ruin your child’s life!

The common "bend" in dance

Why for children

Is there a huge potential for harm?

With the popularization of quality education, more and more parents have begun to pay attention to the development of their children's physical fitness. In order for their children to have an upright body and outstanding temperament, many parents choose dance among many children's training.

But behind such a popular choice, there are subtle risks.

This is the data analysis of children with spinal cord injuries from 2015 to 2019 by the China Rehabilitation Research Center:

It is not difficult to see from the table that the number of children suffering spinal cord injuries caused by dancing bending movements is showing a clear upward trend.

Parents need to be aware that spinal cord injury is a serious disabling disease, and poor recovery will have a huge impact on the life and family of the child.

Why is the "bending down" movement so risky for children?

First, children have better flexibility but less stability.

Let's first look at the anatomy of the spine:

Our spine is composed of 7 cervical vertebrae, 12 thoracic vertebrae, 5 lumbar vertebrae, sacrum and coccyx. The spinal canal contains the spinal cord. These vertebrae are like different segments on a bamboo stick. When they move, they move slightly one by one, and when they are connected in series, they produce large movements.

Anatomy of the spine of an average adult

During exercise, the spinal cord also slides with the movement of the spine. The cervical, thoracic, and lumbar vertebrae all have a safe range of motion . However, if the movements during exercise seriously exceed the safe range , it may cause serious damage to the spinal joints, ligaments, and even nerves.

The spine of children is different from that of adults. Their spine characteristics are as follows:

Changes in spine morphology from prenatal to adulthood

We can see that children are born in a bent shape, and the shape of the spine begins to change after the age of 4. At the age of 6-7, it will form a physiological curvature close to that of an adult: cervical lordosis, thoracic kyphosis, and lumbar lordosis.

Because children's bones contain more cartilage, water and organic matter (collagen), and less inorganic salts (calcium phosphate, carbonate), their bones are elastic and have a large range of motion. However, children themselves do not have enough muscle mass, so they have better flexibility but lack stability.

Secondly, the back bending movement will significantly increase the pressure on the joints of the spine.

Let's analyze the movement of bending down. Please observe the two pictures in detail first:

The left picture shows the spine in a normal standing position, with the cervical curvature slightly forward, the thoracic curvature backward, and the lumbar curvature forward.

The right picture shows the back bending movement. You can see that the entire spine is folded backwards to a great extent, and the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae are greatly arched to the ventral side, and the pressure on the joints of the spine is significantly increased. In particular, the thoracic spine, which should be curved backwards, is now folded and arched forwards.

Therefore, if the waist bending action is not performed properly, the following injuries may occur:

1. When children bend down, their thoracic spine is extremely extended, causing the spinal canal to be narrowed by 50%, which causes a certain amount of compression on the spinal cord and may cause ischemic spinal cord injury.

2. The thoracic spine is stretched longitudinally during extension movement, and the pressure between vertebrae increases significantly, causing local tissue damage.

3. The thoracic spine is stretched longitudinally during extension movement, and the spinal cord is also stretched accordingly. Since the compliance of the child's spinal cord is much smaller than that of the spine, when it reaches the critical value, it can cause damage to the blood vessels entering the spinal cord, leading to spinal cord injury.

Excessive longitudinal stretch, which causes the spinal cord to stretch

After partial spinal cord injury

No immediate paralysis

Early signs of injury are easily overlooked

The most common spinal cord injury caused by bending down is spinal cord injury without fracture or dislocation (SCIWORA), mainly thoracic SCIWORA injury.

This injury can manifest as dysfunction of the nervous system, abnormal sensation and motor function of the lower limbs. In severe cases, the lower limbs may become paralyzed and the patient may need to rely on a wheelchair to live.

After thoracic spinal cord injury, symptoms include abnormal skin sensation and motor function in the lower limbs

In the early stages of spinal cord injury, children may experience back and leg pain, numbness, and chills, followed by loss of consciousness, inability to stand and walk, and inability to urinate.

Parents should note that:

According to reports, some SCIWORA patients do not become paralyzed immediately after the injury, but begin to experience paralysis 30 minutes to 4 days after the injury without obvious further trauma. Some patients' paralysis symptoms even progressively worsen and eventually develop into complete spinal cord injury, which results in a high rate of early misdiagnosis even if they seek medical treatment.

SCIWORA has a poor prognosis and is often accompanied by complications such as scoliosis, hip dislocation, urinary system problems, etc. If a child does develop this disease, it will have a huge impact on the entire family.

Can I still attend the dance interest class?

Injury caused by lower back

Can it be prevented?

In order to prevent injuries caused by improper "bending" movements, parents must pay special attention to the following 6 points:

1

Select training institutions with qualified professional capabilities

According to objective statistics, most children who suffer from spinal cord injuries due to bending down come from economically underdeveloped areas. It is possible that the injuries may be caused by the lack of professional ability and risk awareness of teachers in local dance training institutions.

At the same time, we also call on relevant departments to strictly regulate relevant institutions, and parents must also select high-quality training institutions.

2

It is necessary to assess the child's physical condition and whether it is suitable for dance training.

Every child has a different physical condition. It is recommended that before conducting professional training, a professional physical function assessment be conducted on the child, and appropriate special training be selected to avoid major injuries.

Image source: @cottonbro, Pexels

3

The course arrangement is scientific and reasonable, and reasonable stretching is carried out

The course arrangement is gradual and scientific, and there is no excessive or inappropriate training. Scientific and reasonable warm-up exercises should be performed before and after training. Before the age of 7-8, the strength of the bones, epiphyseal and joint soft tissues of young children is not very high. It is generally recommended to perform high-intensity training after the age of 10, when these tissues have reached a certain strength , so that it is safer.

4

In addition to "flexibility", it is important to focus on children's stability training

Due to their special physiological characteristics, children have good flexibility but lack stability. Emphasis on stability training can increase children's core strength and improve their ability to protect the spine.

5

Raise risk awareness for yourself and your children

Many parents enroll their children in dance classes blindly, without knowing much about dance. Parents must not be ignorant of the possible risks of injury.

6

Pay attention to children’s emotions and “help signals” after exercise

Children do not have sufficient understanding of their own bodies and lack the ability to express themselves due to their young age. In addition, they may suffer from unexplained pain and are likely to be unable to express themselves clearly after showing signs of injury.

If parents lack relevant knowledge and blindly believe that their children are "spoiled" and "cannot endure hardship", it is easy to delay treatment and miss the best time for treatment.

Every time there is news about a child who became disabled due to bending his back, I feel particularly distressed. It is so regrettable and sad that a child who is only five or six years old has to spend his entire life in a wheelchair. I hope that this article today can help everyone further understand the risks and seriousness of children's "bending back" movements.

Regardless of whether children are learning dance or not, we should all pay attention to and learn about the relevant knowledge. If one more person understands it, it may be spread more, and if more people discuss it, it may reduce the occurrence of tragedy.

I hope everyone can forward this article to their family and friends, and communicate with their family (including children) and friends around them to minimize the risk of injury.

Children need to enjoy the fun and results of sports, but they should also follow the scientific laws of development in their exercise and training . Don't rush into things and cause lifelong regrets!

References

[1] Roberts KJ, Nelson NG, McKenzie A L. Dance-Related Injuries in Children and Adolescents Treated in US Emergency Departments in 1991–2007[J]. Physical Activity and Health, 2013(10):143-150.

[2] Dowdell J, Mikhail C, Robinson J, etal. Anatomy of the pediatric spine and spine injuries in young athletes[J]. Annals of Joint, 2018(3):28.

[3] Ren J, Zeng G, Ma Y, etal. Pediatric thoracic SCIWORA after back bend during dance practice: a retrospective case series and analysis of trauma mechanisms[J]. Childs Nerv Syst., 2017(33):1191-1198.

[4] Chatterje S, Vivekananda. Spinal injuries in children[J]. Spinal injuries in children, 2012(3).

[5] Liu Genlin, Zhou Hongjun, et al. Characteristics of changes in the causes of spinal cord injury in children[J]. Chinese Journal of Rehabilitation Theory and Practice, 2020, 26(4).

[6] Huang Yan, Lu Yinshan, Chen Hong. Research progress on spinal cord injury without fracture and dislocation[J]. Chinese Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 2019, 41(5).

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Source: Guokr (id: guokr_kid)

Editor: Yang Yaping

Proofread by Xu Lai and Lin Lin