Dance - Movement & Pre-Pointe Assessment

Assessing your patients' movement patterns are an essential component of identifying why they have developed their musculoskeletal pain, and helping you design their rehab program, whether they play football, cricket, or any other sport. In your dance patients, your movement assessment skills and knowledge are just as important to help your injured dancers return to sport quickly and safely. "Movement Analysis and Pre-Pointe Assessment of Dancers" will provide you with the knowledge to help you assess and treat dancers from beginners through to elite or professional dancers

Do you treat dancers, or would you like to treat more dancers? Would you like to know more about the ideal movement patterns in dancers, as well as specific strength and range of movement deficits that will contribute to injury?

Melanie Fuller is a former professional classical dancer, and Physiotherapist at Pondera Physiotherapy & Pilates, with a special interest in dance, who has extensive experience treating professional dancers in ballet, contemporary & musical theatre as well as working with adolescent dancers of all dance genres. Melanie is Physiotherapy consultant to Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Dance, providing treatment & lecturing to the dance students. She has provided physiotherapy to Queensland Ballet & Expressions Dance Company, and in 2013 Melanie was a relief locum for The Australian Ballet. Her other experience includes work with touring companies Sydney Dance Company, Bangarra Dance Theatre, Royal New Zealand Ballet, & Paris Opera Ballet & she has been company physiotherapist to Legally Blonde, Mary Poppins, Grease & other touring shows for their Brisbane seasons

In this comprehensive video series, Melanie takes you through the various positions and movement specific to dance, demonstrating ideal movement, and common issues that may contribute to injury. You will learn specific range of movement, strength and control tests for your dancers, which you can then use to help you design their injury rehabilitation/prevention program.

Pointe technique is when a classical ballet dancers takes their entire bodyweight through the tips of their toes. The transition to dancing "en-pointe" often happens at around 12 years of age, and more dance teachers are referring to Physiotherapists for a pre-pointe assessment to ensure the dancer is safe to make this transition. Is this position physiologically safe for a dancer? What specific strength, control and range of movement is important to assess prior to your dancer moving to pointe training? Identifying whether your dance patients are ready for pointe training is vital to help prevent injury, and is highly sought after expertise in the dance world.

As well as learning to assess your dancers movement, this video series covers in details the tests you need to perform in your clinic to find out if your dancers are ready to move to pointe training.