Michelle Green-Smerdon’s Ankle and Foot Rehabilitation Concepts for Dancers Programme on Physiopedia Plus (Plus) brings together six courses and a bonus webinar to help you assess and treat the foot and ankle injuries dancers present with. It’s built for any clinician who might see a dancer in clinic, and learners report it applies just as well to runners, other athletes and everyday foot and ankle presentations.
A dancer walks into your clinic with an ankle injury. Would you know what to look for? Dancers place extraordinary demands on their feet and ankles, and the injuries that follow rarely look like the ones you see every day. Yet most of us encounter a dancer only occasionally, if at all, and it’s easy to feel out of your depth when one turns up. Michelle Green-Smerdon has built a dedicated programme on Plus to close that gap, and it’s proving useful well beyond the dance world.
The Ankle and Foot Rehabilitation Concepts for Dancers Programme brings together six courses: Ankle and Foot Anatomy for Dancers, Ankle and Foot Biomechanics for Dancers, Anatomy of the Pointe Shoe, Introduction to the Pre-Pointe Assessment, Dance Injuries of the Foot and Ankle and Practical Assessment and Rehabilitation of the Dancer. Michelle has also recorded an additional webinar Top Tips for Ankle and Foot Injury Management in Dancers for those who want a quick, focused update.
It’s not as niche a topic as it might first appear. You’ll likely see a dancer at some point, whether that’s a recreational ballet student, a competitive gymnast, a cheerleader or a young child just starting out, and dancers of any age can walk through the door. It’s just as useful if you have a friend, family member or child who dances, or if you dance yourself. Several learners also note that the underlying principles carry over well beyond ballet, applying just as readily to other athletes, runners and patients with general foot and ankle conditions.
Confidence comes up repeatedly in the feedback. Once learners understand the demands placed on a dancer’s foot and ankle, they describe feeling far better equipped to ask the right questions and know what to look for.
“Through greater understanding of ballet dance biomechanics, it’s improved my subjective history taking with ballet dancers. It’s allowed me to ask more relevant questions relating to their injury, which has helped guide my objective exam and also treatment approach.”
Learning the language of dance is another recurring theme. If you don’t come from a dance background, understanding dance terms and what “ideal” alignment actually looks like makes a real difference to how you take a history and communicate with dancer-patients.
“I have started treating dancer injuries in my practice. The course so far has familiarised me with particular dance terminology, which will allow me to understand mechanisms of injury when obtaining subjective information.”
The pre-pointe assessment and the anatomy of the pointe shoe stand out as particularly practical additions to clinical practice, with one learner changing their own assessment habits as a direct result.
“Now that I have knowledge of the ballet shoe, I will ask injured dancers to bring their shoe to their physio appointment so that I can gain valuable information on potential causes of injury.”
Michelle’s own teaching style comes through clearly in the feedback too, with learners appreciating the way Michelle relates the anatomy to the practical setting so often.
For a topic that could easily remain locked away as a specialist interest, Michelle Green-Smerdon’s programme has done the opposite: it’s made dance medicine accessible to any clinician who might, one day, find a dancer sitting in their treatment room.
This article was written by one of our course instructors...
Tarina van der Stockt
PT (BphysT), DPT
Education Director Physiopedia Plus