Talk explores value of dance therapy for Parkinson’s patients

Forty people bobbed their heads and swung their feet to Dont Worry, Be Happy as the second installment of the Creative Medicine Series kicked off last night. The lecture and interactive workshop, Artists and Scientists as Partners: Dance, Music and Neuroscience, focused on the power of dance as a therapeutic tool for individuals diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease and Autism Spectrum Disorders. The Creative Medicine Series is the result of a collaboration between the Cogut Center for the Humanities, the Creative Arts Council and the Department of Emergency Medicine at Alpert Medical School.

Are we ready to move our hips? lecturer Rachel Balaban asked the diverse crowd of students, dancers, Parkinsons patients and doctors as the audience loosened up. Balaban is the regional coordinator for Dance for Parkinsons Disease, a program that teaches dance to individuals with Parkinsons.

Dance classes help Parkinsons patients to regain some of the fluidity and ease of movement they once took for granted, Balaban said, citing improved stability, reduction in tremor and a greater sense of social inclusion as some of the programs main benefits to participants with neurodegenerative disorders.

Balaban was joined by Julie Adams Strandberg, professor of theater arts and performance studies, who spoke to arts intrinsic value and its use as a therapeutic tool.

Dance as an art form should be part of everyones life, not just the elite few, Strandberg said. Too often when someone is diagnosed with a disease, art is removed from their lives.

Start dancing ASaP

Balaban and Strandberg joined forces last summer and founded a research and advocacy group called Artists and Scientists as Partners, a program that seeks to implement the arts into treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinsons.

ASaP seeks to build mutual understanding and respect between artists and scientists, advocates arts therapy and provides support to physicians wanting to incorporate the arts into patients healing processes, Strandberg said.

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Talk explores value of dance therapy for Parkinson’s patients