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Weekly dance training impactful for Parkinson's disease patients: Study
A recent study suggests that weekly dance training with music can prove to be beneficial for people suffering from the most debilitating symptoms of Parkinson's disease.
Washington: A recent study suggests that weekly dance training with music can prove to be beneficial for people suffering from the most debilitating symptoms of Parkinson's disease.
The study, published in the journal 'Brain Sciences', found that patients with mild-to-moderate Parkinson's disease (PD) can slow the progress of the disease by participating in dance training with music for one-and-a-quarter hours per week.
Over the course of three years, this activity was found to reduce daily motor issues such as those related to balance and speech, which often lead to social isolation.
Joseph DeSouza, senior author, principal investigator, and associate professor in the Department of Psychology at York University and PhD candidate Karolina Bearss found people with Parkinson's (PwPD) who participated in weekly dance training, had a less motor impairment and showed significant improvement in areas related to speech, tremors, balance and rigidity compared to those who did not do any dance exercise.
Their data showed significant improvements in experiences of daily living, which include cognitive impairment, hallucinations, depression, and anxious moods such as sadness.
The study showed overall that non-motor aspects of daily living, motor experiences of daily living, motor examination symptoms and motor complications did not show any impairment across time among the dance-trained PwPD group compared to PwPD who do not dance.
The study is the first of its kind to follow PwPD over a three-year period during weekly dance participation with music, providing additional information regarding the nature of the progression of motor and non-motor PD symptoms.
"The experience of performing and being in a studio environment with dance instructors appears to provide benefits for these individuals," said DeSouza.
"Generally, what we know is that dance activates brain areas in those without PD. For those with Parkinson's disease even when it's mild motor impairment can impact their daily functioning -- how they feel about themselves. Many of these motor symptoms lead to isolation because once they get extreme, these people don't want to go out.(ANI)