Patients with Parkinson's disease get better with dance lessons, especially the tango

[soccertese]

http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/i...ons_disea.html

interesting


Then, in 2011, Fred, a research engineer, found himself, by chance, in the middle of some Parkinson's research at Rockwell Automation, where he works as manager of research and development.

The company had been invited to help design controls for a motorized bike that would improve symptoms in people with Parkinson's disease. And Fred, originally called in as a consultant, ended up overseeing Rockwell's end of the project.

Now he's working on a study with Angela Ridgel, an assistant professor of exercise science/physiology at Kent State University. In January, Ridgel received a $390,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to fund research on Parkinson's and exercise.

http://www.kent.edu/news/newsdetail....001812227a43c0

[Bob Dawson]

Soccertese has me jumping this morning so I had better take a break, before I reply to every thread. It's the Mirapex. I hyper-type on agonists.

Here is what I wrote about the tango, I think it was in 2007:

What is the craziest thing we could do?
What could we announce that would make people say "That is a stupid idea"?
Let's take people with Parkinson's movement disorders, and teach them to dance the Tango ! So what if they can't walk without falling down, we are not asking them to walk. We are asking them to perform the most complex dance moves, forwards and backwards, in harmony with another dancer.

……………."Although all groups showed gains in various measures, only the Parkinson’s tango group improved on all measures of balance, falls, and gait..."
Lengthy version:
http://parkinsonsdance.blogspot.com/...hapter-13.html

Amen.

[Bob Dawson]

Originally Posted by Bob Dawson.. tango group improved on all measures of balance, falls, and gait..."
[url

http://parkinsonsdance.blogspot.com/2006/07/chapter-13.html[/url]

Why is this important? I am repeating again and again?

The question arises again and again – (it is touched on in the MJFox interview, for example); what possible usefulness can there be to involve the patients in the process, other than as statistics and whiners bemoaning their fate? What role can the patients play other than chat about their aches and pains on internet forums that scientists and doctors and policy-makers never read?

The year is 2007. Ollie Westheimer of the Brooklyn Parkinson’s Group, together with the Mark Morris Dancers, are dancing up a storm with People With Parkinson’s. So is Kate Kelsall in Colorado. In fact, a dance craze has started up in society in general and among Parkies, even more so. In the year 2007, you could easily find Parkies who were dancing, all around the world, just by asking Parkies.

The year is 2007. Here is the latest science news about Parkies dancing:

“… Many mental illnesses are now known to undermine the ability to dance or perform rhythmically – schizophrenia and Parkinson’s, to name just two – and so the sort of rhythmic dancing and music making that have characterized most music across the ages serves as a warranty of physical and mental fitness, perhaps even a warranty of reliability and conscientiousness…”
- page 253 of “This is Your Brain on Music” by Dr. Daniel J. Levitin, neurologist at McGill University, published by Penguin, September 2007 - Scientific American Book Club Selection; L.A. Times Book Award Nominee; New York Times Best-seller for 5 weeks

And that’s from the science book of the year.
Parkies can’t dance.
Of course, no Parkies were involved in finding this out.
What could the patients possibly contribute to the world of the scientific method?
Other than post on a forum, as I am doing now, just repeating for 2013 what I already said in 2007.
Six years have gone by. To find out what Parkies already knew. That's the traditional speed of Parkinson's research - a genteel parlour game of Trivial Pursuit... But what do the mentally ill know about what they live.. they are unreliable, schizophrenia and Parkinson's to name two...
And back down the rabbit hole we go; just ask Alice, when she is two feet tall.

[Bob Dawson]

One more thing and then stand down:
You have seen this video before – from the Brooklyn Parkinson’s Group. You should see it again in this context. The scientific method they are using does not have peer review, but comes from a scientist who flunked math and physics and who never worked in a science lab: Albert Einstein, who summarized his explanation of the universe thusly: “Nothing happens until something moves.”

I respect science greatly and I am very wary of old time hippies offering me herbal tea. But science and art working together can inform each other and get it right. It is a multi-dimensional universe, and can be observed from different sides.

Science saved my life. I am living on pills, for which I thank God and Merck, and the Federal Drug Administration I love my sinemet; Mirapex takes all the blame for my conduct, and selegiline is goes well with red wine.
I love the Mri tube and the scans and I volunteered for a clinical trial in which I play a video game against a computer, while inside the Mri tube, wearing a helmut on which the computer projects an alternate reality, and the computer changes the rules of the game without telling me what the new rules are – and at that moment, when I realize that up and down have reversed positions, red is no longer red and solid rock becomes liquid and yes means no and doors do not open and weapons do not shoot, and I am on my own to figure out what the new game is; and all the while they are zapping images of my brain… basically putting me through a 3-D psychotic fantasy world to take pictures of how my brain reacts to sudden reversals of meaning and direction - great fun! I kept going back for more. It was a mixture of The Matrix and Vertigo. Brilliant stuff. Scientists are doing amazing stuff. But notice they made a video game. An art form. Notice that I understood it as movies. An art form.
It’s chemicals in our brains and that is science and I bow down to scientists. But the condition our condition is in is heavily influenced by the spirit our spirit is in. Which also influences the production of chemicals in the brain.
Pretend you are the doc. The PWP in this video are your patients. They take the drugs, they follow the science. But also they make use of art and exercise, in this case dance and music…. And it all becomes more liveable; and the condition their condition is in will be visibly improved.

Science and art/spirit/hope/beauty are both needed.

So why is only one side being invited to the World Parkinson’s assembly in Montreal in Oct. 2013?
If these were your patients, would you approve of them doing this dance , and would you work together with creators of beauty, in addition to, not in replacement of, your scientific methods?
To put it another way, is this cool or not?

http://youtu.be/Wr0K4MSKX3I

http://youtu.be/Wr0K4MSKX3I