Module I

Upon completion of Module I, participants will be able to: 

• Summarize the most clinically relevant findings of dancers that should be considered when evaluating, treating, and training dancers during select major stages of the human life cycle.

• Acquire the most recent updates to the management of injuries to the connective and neural tissues of the body and apply this information to the evaluation and treatment of the most common bony, muscular, capsular, ligament and neural injuries seen in dancers.

• Define and describe the basic foundational movements of ballet technique including optimal alignment, muscular recruitment, and coordination.

• Analyze movement control of the dancer via application of an evaluation framework that includes the basic foundational movements of ballet technique.

• Identify a dancer who needs nutritional support for eating disorders/disordered eating. 

• Improve your management of the dancer with hypermobility via a review of the current diagnostic criteria of this connective tissue disorder and implications for treatment. 

• Identify the specific components of a soft ballet shoe and pointe shoe and apply this information to an analysis of fit including recommendations for modifications based on a dancer’s needs. 

• Improve your competency in how to best return a dancer to full pointe work via instruction in a progressive protocol that can be used as a framework from which a practitioner to build a plan of care for a specific foot/ankle injury.