A 5-year-old girl was disabled in her lower back while practicing dancing, and a child was seriously injured in her lower back... In recent years, dance has become a popular choice for children to grow their talents. In order to demonstrate their "professionalism", some interest classes let children carry out "flexible stretching" movements, which actually have huge safety risks. Today is World Dance Day, and this article talks about the harm of "lower back" to young children from a medical perspective, and how to protect children's relatively fragile limbs and avoid dangerous movements in other scenarios
The "lower waist" that is common in dance
Why for children
Huge potential hazards?
According to the China Rehabilitation Research Center, from 2015 to 2019, the data of children with spinal cord injury are shown in the figure below, and the number of children with spinal cord injury caused by dance lower back movements has shown a significant upward trend. Spinal cord injury is a serious disease, which will directly affect the normal life of children and bring a serious burden to families.
From the following two points, it is not difficult to see that the "lower back" movement has a huge risk for children.
1. Children have good flexibility, but lack of stability
The adult spine is made up of 7 cervical vertebrae, 12 thoracic vertebrae, 5 lumbar vertebrae, and the sacrum and coccyx. The spinal canal of the spine contains the nerves of the spinal cord. These vertebrae are like different segments on a piece of bamboo, moving in small sections and connecting them in series to produce large movements. During movement, the spinal cord also slides along with the movement of the spine. The cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine all have a safe range of motion. However, if the movement is too far from the safe range, it can cause serious damage to the joints, ligaments and even nerves of the spine.
The characteristics of the child's spine are as follows: the child is born flexed, and the morphology of the spine begins to change after the age of 4, and the physiological curvature close to that of an adult will be formed at the age of 6-7: cervical lordosis, thoracic kyphosis, lumbar lordosis. In addition, because children's bones have more cartilage, water and organic matter (collagen), and less inorganic salts (calcium phosphate, carbonate), children's bones are elastic and have a large range of motion, but the child's own muscle content is insufficient, so children have better flexibility but insufficient stability.
2. The lower back movement will significantly increase the pressure on the joints of the spine
Comparing the following two pictures, the left picture shows the spine in a normal standing position, the cervical curvature is slightly forward, the thoracic curvature is backward, and the lumbar curvature is forward; In particular, the thoracic vertebrae, which should have been curvature backwards, are now folded into the anterior reverse arch.
It can be seen that once the lower back movement is not operated properly, the following injuries may be caused:
1) The thoracic spine is extremely hyperextended when the child is lower lumbar, resulting in 50% spinal stenosis, which squeezes the spinal cord to a certain extent, and spinal cord ischemic injury may occur.
2) The thoracic spine is stretched longitudinally during posterior extension, and the intervertebral pressure increases significantly, resulting in local tissue damage.
3) The thoracic spine is longitudinally stretched during the posterior extension movement, and the spinal cord is also stretched accordingly, because the compliance of the spinal cord in children is much smaller than that of the spine, when the critical value is reached, it can cause vascular injury into the spinal cord, resulting in spinal cord injury.
Some spinal cord injuries are not immediately after injury
Symptoms of paralysis occur
Early manifestations of injury tend to go unnoticed
The most common spinal cord injury due to lower back maneuvers is non-fracture-dislocated spinal cord injury (SCIWORA), which is dominated by thoracic SCIWORA injury, which manifests as neurologic dysfunction and abnormal sensory and motor function of the lower extremities. In severe cases, the lower limbs are paralyzed and need to rely on a wheelchair to live.
Possible manifestations after spinal cord injury include soreness, numbness, chills in the lower back and legs, weakness in the lower limbs, inability to lift the feet, loss of sensation in the lower limbs, and problems in urine and bowel movements. It is also important to note that a subset of patients with SCIWORA do not develop paralysis immediately after trauma, but begin to develop paralysis 30 minutes to 4 days after trauma in the absence of significant further trauma. In some patients, the symptoms of paralysis even progressively worsen, eventually leading to the development of total spinal cord injury, which leads to a high rate of early misdiagnosis even if they go to the doctor. The prognosis of spinal cord injury without fracture dislocation (SCIWORA) is poor and is often accompanied by complications such as scoliosis, hip dislocation, and urinary problems.
Is it still possible to take a dance interest class?
Can lower back injuries be prevented?
In order to prevent injuries caused by improper "lower back" movements, the following 6 points are recommended to be collected:
1. Select training institutions with professional competence
Judging from objective statistics, most of the children who suffer from spinal cord injury due to lower back are from economically underdeveloped areas, which may be due to the lack of professional ability and risk awareness of teachers in relevant local dance training institutions, resulting in injuries. It is recommended that relevant departments strictly regulate relevant institutions, and parents should also select high-quality training institutions.
2. Evaluate the child's physical condition and whether it is suitable for dance training
Each child's physical condition is different, so it is recommended to conduct a professional physical function assessment for the child before professional training, and choose appropriate special training to avoid major injuries.
3. The course arrangement is scientific and reasonable, and reasonable stretching is carried out
The curriculum is arranged in a step-by-step manner, scientifically rigorous, and no excessive and improper training is carried out. Scientific and reasonable warm-up exercises should be done before and after training. Before the age of 7-8, the strength of bones, bone scale and joint soft tissues is not very high, and it is generally recommended that after the age of 10, these tissues reach a certain strength and then go to higher intensity training, so that it can be more stable.
4. In addition to "flexibility", it is necessary to pay attention to children's stability training
Due to special physiological characteristics, children have good flexibility but insufficient stability. Pay attention to stability training, increase children's core strength, and improve the ability to protect the spine.
5. Raise your own and your children's risk awareness
Many parents sign up for dance classes for their children, but they blindly follow the trend, and they themselves have little understanding of dance specialization. Parents must never be ignorant of the risk of injury that may arise.
6. Pay attention to your child's emotions and "distress signals" after exercise
Children do not know enough about their own bodies, and due to their young age, lack of expressive ability, coupled with inexplicable pain, they are likely to have damage signals and cannot express clearly. If parents lack relevant knowledge, it is easy to delay treatment and miss the best time for treatment if they blindly believe that "children are squeamish" and "cannot endure hardships".
While enjoying the fun and results of sports, children should follow the scientific laws of development to exercise and train. I hope that everyone will avoid the risk of injury to the greatest extent, and do not rush and cause lifelong regrets!
Editor: Li Ling
Source: Popular Science China
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