As in All I Wanna Do is post some links to research on Dance and effects on PD symptoms and other related aspects of being a living human being on the face of the planet Earth. As I was going through these, some of the titles looked familiar. If so, no biggie – if I posted the links before, and am being repetitious, “I blame it on the Parkinson’s”©. And repetition is useful in learning.

de Almeida HS, Porto F, Porretti M, Lopes G, Fiorot D, Bunn PDS, da Silva EB. Effect of Dance on Postural Control in People with Parkinson’s Disease: A Meta-Analysis Review. J Aging Phys Act. 2021 Feb 1;29(1):130-141. doi: 10.1123/japa.2019-0255. Epub 2020 Jul 31. PMID: 32736345.

 The statistically significant results of this meta-analysis indicate that dance can improve postural control in people with PD in a short period of time and therefore contribute to the prevention of falls.

Hackney ME, Earhart GM. Effects of dance on balance and gait in severe Parkinson disease: a case study. Disabil Rehabil. 2010;32(8):679-84. doi: 10.3109/09638280903247905. PMID: 20205582; PMCID: PMC2837534.

Twenty partnered tango lessons improved balance, endurance, balance confidence, and quality of life in a participant with severe PD. This is the first report of the use of dance as rehabilitation for an individual with advanced disease who primarily used a wheelchair for transportation.

Zhen, K., Zhang, S., Tao, X. et al. A systematic review and meta-analysis on effects of aerobic exercise in people with Parkinson’s disease. npj Parkinsons Dis. 8, 146 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41531-022-00418-4

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

Ismail, S.R., Lee, S.W.H., Merom, D. et al. Evidence of disease severity, cognitive and physical outcomes of dance interventions for persons with Parkinson’s Disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Geriatr 21, 503 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-021-02446-w

Although certainty of evidence was low, our review suggests that dance intervention modestly reduced motor disease severity and improved certain aspects of balance, while there is insufficient evidence on all other outcomes. The wide variety of dance intervention types and outcome assessed diluted the strength of the evidence base on the effectiveness of dance in people with PD.

It is getting close to my bedtime, so let me just leave a few titles as links in order to expedite this.

Dance for Chronic Pain Conditions: A Systematic Review

Dance for neuroplasticity: A descriptive systematic review

Physiotherapy management of Parkinson’s disease

and now it’s waay past my meds time, and my errors have increased, so time to put this blog post to bed.

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Neither of these articles addesses Parkinson’s Disease, buut what the heck, I’ll report on them anyway.

music therapy in the schools

Basically, the abstract says that music therapists in the schools do a lot of good for a lot of kids.

and another abstract, this one about dance:

Effect of dance therapies on motor-cognitive dual-task performance in middle-aged and older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Alvaro Murillo-Garcia, Santos Villafaina, Daniel Collado-Mateo, Juan Luis Leon-Llamas & Narcis Gusi (2020) Effect of dance therapies on motor-cognitive dual-task performance in middle-aged and older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis, Disability and Rehabilitation, DOI: 10.1080/09638288.2020.1735537

High Intensity Interval Training was conducted at a European gym called Speedflex, and one of the researchers was a former employee of the company. However, they do seem to have tried to be transparent and the company did not have any input or control over the design.

High-intensity interval training in people with Parkinson’s disease: A randomised, controlled feasibility trial

“No significant improvements in cardiac output, cognitive function or quality of life were seen”

• High-intensity interval training appears to be feasible and acceptable in people with early to mid-stage Parkinson’s disease
• Patient were able to consistently exercise at greater than 85% of their maximal heart rate across the 12 week intervention
• Significant improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness were seen across the intervention period

Basic clinical features do not predict dopamine transporterbinding in idiopathic REM behavior disorder 

REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is strongly associated with development of Parkinson’s Disease and otherα-synuclein-relateddisorders. Dopamine transporter (DAT) binding deficit predicts conversion toα-synuclein-related disorders in individuals with RBD.In turn, identifying which individuals with RBD have the highest likelihood of having abnormal DAT binding would be useful. Theobjective of this analysis was to examine if there are basic clinical predictors of DAT deficit in RBD. Participants referred for inclusionin the RBD cohort of the Parkinson Progression Markers Initiative were included. Assessments at the screening visit including DATSPECT imaging, physical examination, cognitive function screen, and questionnaire-based non-motor assessment. The group withDAT binding deficit (n=49) was compared to those without (n=26). There were no significant differences in demographic orclinical features between the two groups. When recruiting RBD cohorts enriched for high risk of neurodegenerative disorders, ourdata support the need for objective biomarker assessments.npj Parkinson’s Disease (2019) 5:2 ; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41531-018-0073-

This blog has been on hiatus for nearly a year, bu I have some fairly decent excuses – a recurring case pf cystitis, a bunion that  was attempted by one surgeon, then after six months, found out the real reason my foot was still swollen was that the screws holding the plate waer too long and were causing irritation of the next metatarsal – so it has been 8 going on 9 months of limited mobility and limited opportunity to hit all buy the highest priorities.

Like getting to the bathroom before it’s too late, shaving and bathing every couple of days, getting dressed, getting undressed, and th elike. Slow but independent mostly.

I have started writing an essay on Moses Maimnides’ A guife for the Perplexed and willinclude it here when it is more orless complete. Basically henotes the four types of perfection that humans seek: material goods, physical perfection, social ethics, and seeking truth, or knowledge. I address these in more detail in the essay, but the bottom linr id hid: We need enough material possessions to be sa independent as possible for as long as possile, we need to stay active and physically fit enugh that we don’t cause  medical issues,  we should be ethical in our dealings with others, and we should seek the truth, which ti me means using the scientific mehtod to determine which treatments work best for which patients, what causes different illnesses, and how “fuzzy” logic might help us to get closer to the truth in some cases than strict categorical thinking..

Maimonides clearly though that he last of these was the “highest” form of perfectiontobe sough sfter, while I argue that a balanceamongst allfour of these elements is best.

That will come later. For I havemiles to go befoe I go to sleep and will not go gently into that good night anytime soon, to plagiarize a couple of famous dead poets..