Category Archives: Dance

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What to do?

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When it comes to diseases like cancer, the UK medical folks have decided that the “fighting” and “warrior” mentality are counter-productive. For one, this mindset causes people to delay seeking treatment. I don’t have the exact citation at hand, but it is referenced in this blog somewhere, and you’re welcome to search for it. (Thankfully, this is not a dissertation or scholarly article, or I couldn’t have written the previous sentence and gotten away with it).

But when it comes to exercise as a good way to slow, and sometimes reverse the physical or cognitive symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease (PD), there ain’t no doubt in some folks minds that dance is one of the finer things around to combine aerobic exercise, movements, and cognitive challenges to build new connections between neurons in the brain.

From the Digital Commons at Sarah Lawrence College comes this Master’s Thesis:

Rajan, Sneha, “Embodied Medicine: Integrating Dance/Movement Therapy into Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation” (2021). Dance/Movement Therapy Theses. 79. https://digitalcommons.slc.edu/dmt_etd/79

Long story short: “Overall, physiatry and dance/movement therapy have separately helped so many people but developing a synergy between these fields has the potential to transform rehabilitative medicine.”(emphasis added).

Specifically addressing Parkinson’s Disease issues, she writes:

For individuals with Parkinson’s disease, studies have shown that physical rehabilitation is an effective way to manage motor and non-motor symptoms (Mitra et al., 2020). However, maintaining motivation for treatment is difficult because of progressive difficulties with physical disability and co-existing emotional factors, so as a result not many adults engage with enough physical exercise (Mitra et al., 2020). By incorporating cognitive, emotional, and social components, the exercise environment could become more engaging and multidimensional (Mitra et al., 2020). One experimental study examined the effects of dance/movement therapy sessions on the cognition, quality of life, and motor symptoms of patients with Parkinson’s disease (Mitra et al., 2020). They used a variety of techniques such as targeted body exercises, memory games, movement improvisation, guided imagery, rhythm work, contact improvisation, mirroring, body coordination and movement reflexes (Mitra et al., 2020). Music was also used to incorporate rhythm and sensory motor cues (Mitra et al., 2020).

As a result, participants showed a significant increase in cognitive functioning and a decrease in Parkinson’s related health difficulties. Additionally, patients reported improvements in coordination, mood, and memory (Mitra et al., 2020). Another study analyzed the effectiveness of music-based movement therapy on gait related activities in Parkinson’s patients (Dreu et al., 2011). They examined both individual music-based gait training and partnered-dance interventions. The music provides rhythmic cues that help synchronize movements and also facilitates emotional responses in the participants (Dreu et al., 2011). Participants showed improvements in walking velocity and balance (Dreu et al., 2011). (Emphasis added.)

 If I were to judge this Master’s thesis, I would suggest more sources, and more recent ones than the one she used in material about Parkinson’s in the paragraphs before the ones I quoted above. But I’m not on the faculty of Sarah Lawrence College, so that’s their loss.

And the answer to the question posed in the title of this blog entry “What to do?” is simple: Don’t Stop Moving To The Music!

 

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Slow down… or speed up, that is the question…

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This article isn’t about Parkinson’s, but since bradykinesia is one of the signature symptoms of parkinsonism, and the title is about the challenge of being slow, it interested me.

Birgitta Burger & Clemens Wöllner (2021): The challenge of being slow: Effects of tempo, laterality, and experience on dance movement consistency, Journal of Motor Behavior, DOI: 10.1080/00222895.2021.1896469

Basically, the authors found that people who were musically trained were better able to perform the given tasks consistently on both sides of their bodies. In other words, they are bilateral in terms of brain dominance, while other folks showed lower scores in terms of consistently performing the actions at different tempi (speeds). Because they were dominant on one or the other side of their brains. 

As an amateur musician, mostly untrained (or it didn’t take) I have found that during rhythm & drumming classes that I have been in that things like a simple paradiddle are much more difficult at a slower tempo than at a faster tempo. On the other hand, some combinations are more difficult at a faster tempo than at the slower tempo. Just trying to build those cross brain connections, as the prefrontal cortex to the back of the brain and the motor control and reward system parts fade out. So I will play at the piano at a slow speed, ’cause if I pick up the tempo my fingers get even more clumsier than they are.

Maybe difficulty with moving both sides consistently is part of the reason People with Parkinson’s have difficulty with balance and with falls?  From my own experience, can’t confirm or deny the hypothesis, since I’m not that good as a musician, but seem to have some bilateral skills, and until recently, when immersion in the moment took over the judgement and reason, have not experienced problems with balance or falls. Would be an interesting research question, though…

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Research on the arts and outcomes related to Parkinson’s – and more related research and hypotheses

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For our first article, we have a review on group based dance, singing, music, and theatrical treatments on a variety show of outcomes. 

A systematic review of active group-based dance, singing, music therapy and theatrical interventions for quality of life, functional communication, speech, motor function and cognitive status in people with Parkinson’s disease

Basically, they found that the arts seemed to have positive effects for folks with PD – but that not all types of arts were evaluated against all of the outcomes listed. So “More research is needed” to look into all aspects. But it’s a good thing.

Next up is a review of the effects of oxytocin and the effects of music on the human brain. And on social behavior and bonding. While not specifically directed at Parkinson’s disease, it is certainly applicable to treatments for people with Parkinson’s.

Links Between the Neurobiology of Oxytocin and Human Musicality

 It is argued that many of these characteristics of oxytocin biology closely mirror the diverse effects that music has on human cognition and emotion, providing a link to the important role music has played throughout human evolutionary history and helping to explain why music remains a special prosocial human asset. Finally, it is suggested that there is a potential synergy in combining oxytocin- and music-based strategies to improve general health and aid in the treatment of various neurological dysfunctions.

Keywords: oxytocin, music, dance, reward, empathy, trust, therapy

If there is a link between neurobiology and music, then it stands to reason that music played a part in the evolution of modern Homo sapiens. That is the topic of the brief review of:

Music and the Meeting of Human Minds by Alan Harvey

The author addresses

  1. when and why  modern humans evolved musical behaviors,
  2. the evolutionary relationship between music and language, and 
  3. why humans, perhaps unique among all living species, universally
    continue to possess two complementary but distinct communication streams.

He argues that “early in our history, the unique socializing and harmonizing power of music acted as an essential counterweight to the new and evolving sense of self, to an emerging sense of individuality and mortality that was linked to the development of an advanced cognitive capacity and articulate language capability.”

Dopamine is one of the keywords, so it should be of interest to People with Parkinson’s.

Another article along similar lines is Music as a coevolved system for social bonding,  The authors put forth an hypothesis and

make testable predictions for future research, including neurobiological bases of musicality and relationships between human music, language, animal song, and other domains. The music and social bonding (MSB) hypothesis provides the most comprehensive theory to date of the biological and cultural evolution of music.

More materials on this area of interest:

Four principles of bio-musicology (2015)

Without it no music: cognition, biology and evolution of musicality (2015)

Motor constraints influence cultural evolution of rhythm 

Music and Language in Social Interaction: Synchrony, Antiphony, and Functional Origins

How to sum it all up?  In the words of James Brown: 

I Feel Good

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A review on dance and PD

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Dance classes for Parkinson’s patients was one of the things that got me involved in Power for Parkinson’s© and the Georgetown Area Parkinson’s Support group to begin with. For me, it has helped to improve symptoms and quality of life tremendously.

In this desk review of many studies, the authors came to the following conclusions:

Overall, the reviewed evidence demonstrated that dance can improve motor impairments, specifically balance and motor symptom severity in individuals with mild to moderate PD, and that more research is needed to determine its effects on non-motor symptoms and QOL. RCTs that use a mixed-methods approach and include larger sample sizes will be beneficial in fully characterizing effects and in determining which program elements are most important in bringing about positive, clinically meaningful changes in people with PD.

 Carapellotti AM, Stevenson R, Doumas M (2020) The efficacy of dance for improving motor impairments, non-motor symptoms, and quality of life in Parkinson’s disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS ONE 15(8): e0236820. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0236820

I have come to the conclusion that every study or review has to include the phrase “more research is needed.” And it is true.

You can read the article in its entirety at the URL in the citation, or download it directly from this link:

The efficacy of dance for improving motor impairments, non-motor symptoms, and quality of life in Parkinson’s disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis

 

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Oh, I’m walking to New Orleans… or maybe the Outback

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Here’s a conference poster reporting some recent research on music and gait… and the effects of dual tasks on Parkinson’s Disease diagnosed people. It seems that all the researchers are in Australia, hence the title to this post.

Walkin’ and Talkin’: dual task effects on Gait

They had a few different tasks – just walking, walking while saying all the words one could think of starting with the letter (name a letter), and walking while counting in intervals. The conclusion was that Dance For Parkinson’s® had a positive effect. Naturally, they called for more research with larger numbers of participants.

In the meantime, as I always say: Don’t stop moving to the music!

 

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Art, Dance, Medicine, Parkinson’s, Genetics, Oh My!

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Arts and Medicine research – my only wish is that they would look into the possibility of physical changes in the brains of people involved, and not just on co-creating knowledge:

Co-creating knowledge…

Next:

Dance therapy demonstrates a highly appropriate choice of intervention to stimulate plasticity processes, improve age-related deterioration, and thus contribute to successful aging. Health care professionals involved in the care of elderly individuals should whenever possible consider the feasibility of associating dance therapy as a stimulating and therapeutic activity.

Dance therapy in aging: A systematic review

“There were 2,334 studies, out of which 6 were chosen.” This review limited itself to dance as therapy for healthy aging adults, and excluded those studies that looked at Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s people. Again, I would hope that future studies look at changes in brain activity and structure, as well as observable differences in movement, etc.

Next, an open access article reviewing genetic risks involving Parkinson’s: “This study provides evidence that alleles associated with Parkinson disease risk, in particular GBA variants, also contribute to the heterogeneity of multiple motor and nonmotor aspects. Accounting for genetic variability will be a useful factor in understanding disease course and in minimizing heterogeneity in clinical trials.”

Genetic risk of Parkinson disease and progression: An analysis of 13 longitudinal cohorts

(Will have to read it in order to see what it says,  and compare it with my genome files to see what it means for me).

Dance, depression, Drumming, Exercise, Music, Parkinson's, Research, Reviews , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I got rhythm, I got music…

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Put together a slide presentation trying to synthesize some of the research on Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and the possibility of music, singing, playing musical instruments, and dance as means to counteract the progressive effects of dopaminergic neurons lost in the course of PD. Due to the length of the presentation and the limits of my computer resources, the narration seems to have gotten a little out of sync towards the end. But it is what it is, as they say: (note: added a PDF file of the presentation on 6-9-19 to make it easier to download and view)

Rhythm, Music, Singing, Dancing and the Brain

2019-06-05-Rhythm Music Singing and the brain  (PDF file)

and an even smaller file with all the blue and yellow intact (6-15-2019):

Rhythm Music Singing Dancing and the Brain

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Progressively difficult or complex dance training is superior to repetitive physical exercise

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Yep, you read that correctly. This research was done using neuro-imaging and revealed that brain plasticity ( how experiences reorganize neural pathways in the brain) is increased by a program of increasingly difficult dance training. (The title of this entry was edited 04/28/2021 to make it more clear that the variable was increasing the difficulty, and not simply dance vs. exercise. ALL exercise is good, as long as not overdone, but to incorporate research findings into the program (like Power for Parkinson’s or Lew-Ortiz Pabon’s Apollo Rhythm Club do), takes some extra effort).

Dance training is superior to repetitive physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity in the elderly.

… Both interventions increased physical fitness to the same extent. Pronounced differences were seen in the effects on brain volumes: Dancing compared to conventional fitness activity led to larger volume increases in more brain areas, including the cingulate cortex, insula, corpus callosum and sensorimotor cortex. Only dancing was associated with an increase in plasma BDNF levels. Regarding cognition, both groups improved in attention and spatial memory, but no significant group differences emerged. The latter finding may indicate that cognitive benefits may develop later and after structural brain changes have taken place. The present results recommend our challenging dance program as an effective measure to counteract detrimental effects of aging on the brain.

On a personal note, I noticed during a year long period of reduced mobility that my Parkinson’s symptoms had progressed (or regressed, depending on how you look at it). Slurred speech was perhaps one of the more obvious or noticeable symptoms. That has now disappeared, though one has to be mindful to speak clearly and loudly in order to be understood.

Physical exercise of any kind is good, it seems. Weight resistance and other exercises can benefit from the high intensity interval approach. But move to the music, and join a dance class that increasingly challenges the brain (especially if you are classified among the elderly, even if you are Young At Heart).