The Dance Medicine Center recognizes dancers as world-class athletes who endure extreme physical demands and warrant specialized care. Professional dancers spend up to eight hours a day performing at levels of intensity that cause chronic injury. Many of these injuries take dancers off the stage for six months to a year or end their careers altogether.

At our Dance Medicine Center, we work with dancers to develop treatment plans that, when possible, allow patients to continue dancing without further aggravating a condition or causing more serious injury. Our center, located in the UCSF Orthopaedic Institute at Mission Bay, offers a weekly screening and education clinic. We provide injury and technique evaluation, musculoskeletal screening and treatment and education.

Dancers also may be evaluated in the UCSF Human Performance Center, which has a suspended dance floor, ballet bar, Pilates reformer and high-tech motion monitoring system. Our team of experts includes a physical therapist, primary care sports medicine specialist and two orthopedic surgeons who have backgrounds in professional dance and treating dancers. The center is open to dancers of all ages, levels and techniques.