A few days ago, the topic of "5-year-old girl practicing dancing and being disabled at the lower back" was sent out by the CCTV weibo and directly rushed to the hot search.
This is actually an old story from last year, and the reason why it has aroused people's strong attention is because dance classes are one of the most common extracurricular activities for preschoolers. Moreover, the incident of "serious injury to the lower back" or even lifelong disability is not unique, and every parent should attach great importance to it!
With the implementation of the double reduction policy, various dance classes and martial arts classes have been sought after by parents. Parents send young children to these kinds of interest classes in order to gain a good body through exercise and acquire a skill. However, due to the uneven professionalism of extracurricular classes, some interest classes allow children to carry out many "flexible stretching" actions with safety hazards in order to highlight their "professionalism".
After the hot search came out, netizens had different opinions about this matter:
There are also many analytical articles on the Internet, but there is still a lack of scientifically rigorous and relatively systematic articles on this matter.
Therefore, the Children's Academy specially invited two experts to explain from a medical point of view the harm of "lower back" to young children, and how to protect children's relatively fragile limbs and avoid dangerous movements in other scenarios.
Whether the child is learning to dance or preparing to learn dance, he should carefully read today's article and forward it to friends in need around him.
We must also remind our friends and relatives around us: it is good to let children exercise, but it must conform to the objective laws of physical development, and do not cause big mistakes and ruin the child's life!
The common "lower waist" in dance,
Why is there a huge potential harm to children?
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 be tall and temperamental, many parents have chosen dance in many children's training.
But behind such popular choices, there are imperceptible risks.
Here's a data analysis of pediatric spinal cord injury patients from the China Rehabilitation Research Center from 2015 to 2019:
It is not difficult to see from the table that the number of children with spinal cord injuries caused by dance lower back movements shows a clear upward trend.
Parents need to be alert to the fact that spinal cord injury is a serious disabling disease that is not well recovered and can have a huge impact on the lives and families of children.
Why is the "lower back" movement so risky for children?
First of all, children have better flexibility, but insufficient stability
Let's first look at the anatomy of the spine:
Our spine consists of 7 cervical vertebrae, 12 thoracic vertebrae, 5 lumbar vertebrae, and sacral and coccyx. Inside the spinal canal of the spine is the spinal nerve. These spine vertebrae are like different segments on a piece of bamboo, moving in small movements one by one, connecting them together to produce large movements.
Anatomical diagram 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 spine all have a safe range of motion. However, if the movements in motion are seriously beyond the safe range, it may cause serious damage to the joints, ligaments and even nerves of the spine.
Children's spine, unlike adults, has the following characteristics of their spine:
From before birth to adulthood, the morphological changes of the spine
We can see that the child is born in a flexion shape, and the physiological curvature close to that of adults is formed at 6-7 years old: cervical kyphosis, thoracic kyphosis, lumbar convexity.
Because there are more cartilage, water and organic matter (bone collagen) in children's bones, and less inorganic salts (calcium phosphate, carbonate), children's bones are elastic and have a large range of motion, but the children's own muscle content is insufficient, so children have better flexibility but insufficient stability.
Secondly, the lower back movement will significantly increase the pressure on the joints of the spine
Let's analyze the movement of the lower back, please observe two pictures in detail:
The figure on the left is of the spine in a normal standing position, with cervical curvature slightly forward, thoracic curvature backwards, and lumbar curvature forward.
The right figure is the lower back movement, you can see the entire spine folded backwards sharply, the thoracic spine and lumbar spine show a great degree of ventral reverse arch, and the pressure of each joint of the spine increases significantly. In particular, the thoracic vertebrae, which should be curved backwards, are folded to the anterior side of the recoil.
Therefore, once the lower back movement is not properly operated, the following injuries may be caused:
1. When children have an inferior lower back, the thoracic spine is extremely hyperextended, so that the spinal canal stenosis area reaches 50%, there is a certain squeeze on the spinal cord, and there may be ischemic injury to the spinal cord.
2. The thoracic spine is stretched longitudinally during posterior extension movement, and the pressure between the intervertebral bodies increases significantly, resulting in local tissue damage.
3. The thoracic spine is stretched longitudinally during posterior extension movement, and the spinal cord is stretched accordingly, because the child's spinal cord compliance is much smaller than that of the spine, when the critical value is reached, it can cause blood vessel damage into the spinal cord, resulting in spinal cord injury.
Excessive longitudinal stretching, resulting in stretching of the spinal cord
Paralysis does not occur immediately after some spinal cord injuries
Early manifestations of injury are easily overlooked
The most common spinal cord injuries caused by lower back movements are spinal cord injury without fracture dislocation (SCIWORA), which is predominantly thoracic SCIWORA injury.
This injury manifests itself as neurologic dysfunction and sensory and motor abnormalities of the lower extremities. In severe cases, lower limb paralysis is present and requires a wheelchair to live.
After thoracic spinal cord injury, it is manifested by paresthesias of the skin of the lower extremities and abnormal motor function of the lower extremities
In the early stages of spinal cord injury, children may have symptoms such as sore waist and legs, tingling, chills, and then loss of consciousness, inability to stand and walk, and inability to urinate.
It is worth noting that parents are:
According to reports, some SCIWORA patients do not actually develop paralysis immediately after trauma, but begin to develop paralysis symptoms 30 minutes to 4 days after trauma without obvious further trauma. In some patients, paralysis or even progressive exacerbations eventually lead to the development of a total spinal cord injury, which results in a high rate of early misdiagnosis even when visiting a doctor.
The prognosis of SCIWORA is poor and often accompanied by associated complications such as scoliosis, hip dislocation, and urinary problems. If a child does suffer from this disease, it can have a huge impact on the whole family.
Can I still take dance interest classes?
Can injuries to the lower back be prevented?
In order to prevent injuries caused by inappropriate "lower back" movements, the following 6 points, parents must pay special attention:
1. Select training institutions with professional ability:
According to objective statistics, most of the children currently suffering from "spinal cord injuries caused by the lower back" come from economically underdeveloped areas. It may be speculated that it may be that the teachers of the relevant local dance training institutions have insufficient professional ability and weak risk awareness, resulting in damage.
At the same time, we also call on the relevant departments to strictly regulate the relevant institutions, and parents should also select high-quality training institutions.
2. It is necessary to assess the child's physical condition and whether it is suitable for dance special training:
Each child's physical state is different, it is recommended to conduct a professional physical function assessment of the child before professional training, and select suitable special training to avoid major injuries.
Image source @cottonbro, Pexels
3. The course arrangement is scientific and reasonable, and reasonable stretching is carried out:
The curriculum is gradual, scientifically rigorous, and does not carry out excessive and improper training. Scientific and reasonable warm-up exercises should be carried out before and after training. Before the age of 7-8, the strength of bones, bone scale and joint soft tissues is not very high, it is generally recommended that after the age of 10, the above tissues reach a certain intensity and then go to higher intensity training to be more stable.
4. In addition to "flexibility", we should pay attention to children's stability training:
Due to special physiological traits, children have good flexibility but insufficient stability. Emphasis is placed on stability training to increase your child's core strength and improve the ability to protect your spine.
5. Improve the risk awareness of yourself and your child:
Many parents report dance classes to their children, blindly following the trend, and they themselves know very little about dance specialties. Parents must not be ignorant of the risk of injury that may arise.
6. Pay attention to the child's emotions and "distress signals" after exercise:
Children do not know enough about their own body, and due to their small age and lack of ability to express themselves, coupled with inexplicable pain, they are likely to have injury signals and express themselves inexorably.
If parents lack relevant knowledge, blindly believing that "children are squeamish" and "can't suffer" is easy to delay treatment and miss the best time for treatment.
Every time there is news about children being disabled at the lower back, I am particularly distressed. It is a pity and sad that a child who is only five or six years old has to spend his whole life in a wheelchair. I hope that today's article can help you further understand the risk and severity of children's "lower back" movements.
Whether or not children are learning dance, we should pay attention to and understand the relevant knowledge. The more people understand, the more communication, the more people discuss, the more tragedy may be reduced.
I hope that you can forward this article to family and friends, and communicate with family members (including children) and friends around you to avoid the risk of injury to the greatest extent.
Children need to enjoy the fun and results of sports, but also should follow the scientific development rules to exercise and train, do not be too hasty, resulting in lifelong regrets!
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The author 丨 Huang Tao, founder of interosseous rehabilitation brand, former rehabilitation therapist of rehabilitation medicine and treatment technology in the Department of Sports Medicine, Peking University Third Hospital.
The author is Zhao Qian, Clinical Teacher of Orthopedic Rehabilitation at the University of Southern California, Beijing 301 Hospital and The First Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University.
Planning 丨 Lin Yiyi Editor 丨 Nut Mother, Antelope
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