Rhythms of Resilience: Exploring the Dance for Parkinson's Program

Episode 24.  Step into the world of healing movement in this episode as I shine a spotlight on the transformative Dance for Parkinson's program. I'll explore the profound impact of rhythmic expression on physical and emotional well-being, and how this program is fostering a community of resilience and hope.

Links:
Dance for PD 

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Transcript

Lisa: 0:00

Imagine your body begins to have uncontrolled tremors. Walking turns into a shuffle. Something as simple as bringing your fork to your mouth becomes an unknown. People who have Parkinson's disease experience this and many other debilitating symptoms like stiff muscles, involuntary movements, and problems with coordination and balance. It is a progressive disorder that affects the nervous system and parts of the body. Controlled by the nerves like the muscles. Welcome to the Happy Sweat Life Podcast. My name is Lisa Rung and in this episode I'm going to be talking about and introducing you to the Dance for PD or Dance for Parkinson's Disease program. It was started in 2001 by the Mark Morris Dance Company. They had opened a studio in Brooklyn, New York, and were very committed to serving the community. One of the people that came through their door was a woman named Ollie Westheimer, and she was the founder of the Brooklyn Parkinson's Group. She proposed that the Mark Morris Dance Company start a dance class for people who had Parkinson's. And in October of that year, six members of the Brooklyn Parkinson's group took their first class. It was a bit of trial and error, but by 2005, they felt confident enough with the benefits that they were seeing to give a demo class for neurologists. In 2007, Articles began to appear in newspapers and magazines about the program and its benefits. And in that same year, 30 teachers attended the first training workshop. They have been expanding their outreach throughout the U. S. and overseas since then. They are now in almost every state in the U. S., in 300 communities, and in 28 countries. In 20 Because of the pandemic, they were forced to go online and they became a fully online program. During that time, they attracted more than 2, 000 participants in 38 countries. In 2022, they restored programming in 7 locations in New York City. and offered support to affiliates to relaunch. The Bowen Award for Inclusive Choreography was opened to an international group of candidates as well. So some of the benefits that they are seeing with the stance class is a reduction in gait, tremor, reduced rates of depression, increased confidence, and they don't exactly know why that is happening, but there have been studies on dance for cognitive benefits, and it's found that dancing staves off dementia more than any other activity, and it's theorized that perhaps it's because of the connection with music and also having to learn So as I said, some of the benefits that they're seeing with this also are reasons why people would want to take it is because it helps with strength, fluidity, flexibility, stamina, and balance. It's stimulating cognitive activity that connects the mind to the body. It's shown to spark creativity and develop. problem solving skills. It supports social connection and a sense of belonging. And it is through dance that we express our stories and emotions through our bodies. So, in this dance class, there is a variety of dance styles that include contemporary, modern, and ballet, and they are all adapted to accommodate participants ability. The classes are aimed for both persons with Parkinson's and their caretakers. and the company and the class values accessibility, inclusion, compassion, and artistic quality. If you check out their website, which is danceforparkinsons. org, you will see that there are many ways that you can take a class. They have in person classes, as I mentioned before and also Zoom. They're still continuing with that. They offer the Zoom classes not only in English, but I love this, it's in Mandarin and in Spanish. They have a digital class library, which is available for streaming and downloading. They have some DVDs and home instructional videos. And then I thought this was really unique, but definitely really needed for people who don't have internet connection and can't make it to class. You can do dance by phone. So you call in and you'll get instructions over the phone about what movements you should be doing. most of the offerings are free because this is a non profit organization. Some of it is, they do have a cost to it, but it's pretty low. And the other thing that's on the website which I thought was really interesting is So there's lots of articles that have been written about the connection between the benefits of dance and improvement in Parkinson's disease symptoms. So, one of the things too that's pretty interesting is actually music, how music plays into helping with movement. So I was reading that it's often used by, or increasingly used by therapists and exercise professionals to improve walking, balancing, and other activities related to your gait. Music has an effect on cognition. And movement. And people, when they're focusing on the music rather than their problems, it seems to really help with their mobility. There's also a phenomenon called RAS, or Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation, in which music is used to encourage subconscious processes in the body to improve the efficiency of physical movements. And I found another term which is ergo, Ergogenic, which is Work and stamina enhancing effect of music. It says that certain music helps to eliminate or reduce people's feeling of tiredness and increase their exercise capacity. And if you've ever run or exercised, exercise to music. I, I've had the experience that it just, it seems to make the exercise time go by faster. It's more enjoyable. If you're running, it can kind of help with your tempo maybe keep you running faster than you might normally do if you're not listening to music. And then the other interesting study that I was reading about in terms of music is that, there was a study that was published in November of 2023 in a scientific journal, which was called Cognition, and they worked with 27 newborns and discovered that these babies were able to hear a beat and, one of the research, researchers and authors. Most people can easily pick up the beat in music and judge whether the music is getting faster or slower. It seems like an inconsequential skill. However, since perceiving regularity in music is what allows us to dance and make music together, it is not a trivial phenomenon. In fact, beat perception can be considered a fundamental human trait that must have played a crucial role in the evolution of our capacity for music. So I just think it's really interesting When you combine music and dance, just the power of that for helping in so many different ways with depression and with the Parkinson's and probably other types of issues that we might not have explored yet. So anyway, I would highly recommend that you check out the Dance for PD website and look at all of the resources and classes that they have available. And if you do have any comments or questions I would love to hear from you. Just email me at HappySweatLife at gmail. com. Thanks for listening and if you haven't already subscribed I'd love you to do that.