Tango can slow down Parkinson’s disease because it helps recover motor automatisms

The tango can slow down Parkinson’s disease: on April 18th, they will explain it and show it live i besta neurologists of Milan in a conference also open to the public dedicated to gender differences and new frontiers of treatment.

Organized by the IRCCS Carlo Besta Foundation a week after World Parkinson’s Day on 11 April (date of birth of James Parkinson who discovered the pathology in 1817), the event coincides with the Snational women’s health week which, although involved to a lesser extent by this disease (50% less), plays a fundamental role in dance therapy.
It will be discussed throughout the morning of the 18th at the Giorgio Gaber auditorium in Piazza Duca D’Aosta in Milan (for information:[email protected]) with a performance by one of the speakers who will dance with a patient.

The movement regulator

One of the proponents of the therapeutic value of music in Parkinson’s disease was the famous American neurologist Oliver Sacks who, in his book Musicophilia, explained how patients lack a sense of cadence: they always go too fast or too slowly because the movement rhythm regulator that music can instead restore. Sometimes just the ticking of a simple piano metronome is enough to see their progress improve.

Because tango

In recent years, various indications have emerged on the usefulness of various types of exercise ranging from indoor cycling, to tai-chi, to Irish dancing. «Of all the dances, the most effective was the tango – says the Director of the Clinical Neurosciences Department and of the Parkinson and Movement Disorders Center at Besta Roberto Eleopra -, especially the Argentine one, because it presents movements at different speeds, continuous stops and accelerations, U-turns, sudden detachments from the ground. These characteristics train to improve balance and coordination, stimulating the supplementary motor area of ​​the frontal lobe. According to some, the rhythmic and measured movements of this tango would selectively help the basal ganglia to improve motor control because the rhythm and timbre of this music help to recover lost motor automatisms».

Emotional recovery

«Dance for those who suffer from this disease it also improves sociability reducing isolation with not only physical but also emotional advantages in terms of quality of life – adds the conference organizer Barbara Garavaglia of the Besta molecular neurogenetics diagnostics and applied technology department – because it stimulates a positive change in perspective and attitude towards the diagnosis as the sense of self-efficiency increases and the self-management of one’s body is recovered. Tango therapy, unlike other forms of rehabilitation carried out in the gym, which may seem repetitive and boring, is considered by patients to be a form of entertainment because it encourages contact and interaction with others, improvinghumor».

In fact, it has the advantage of uniting the two genders in recovery from the disease because a man and a woman dance tango together. 10 years have now passed since the first publication by Canadian researchers led by Roland Postuma on the benefits of this therapy which demonstrated that after just three months an improvement was achieved both in the motor components (tremor, rigidity, postural instability) and in mood (depression , tiredness). Since then these initiatives have multiplied all over the world and tango therapy has been increasingly included in the rehabilitation process of Parkinson’s patients with positive results.

At Cinema

Tango therapy has also arrived on cinema screens where the recent documentary film Tango della vita, inspired by the true story of two passionate tango dancers, the farmer Marco and his wife Ivana: it tells how thanks to this daily practice Marco realizes that he has slowed down the Parkinson’s disease that had struck him without understanding why, until he finds out of Postuma studies.

Not for all

A study published 6 years before Postuma’s by other Canadian researchers from the University of Ontario directed by Quincy Almeida had indicated that tango therapy would fall within the so-called exercises PD SAFExacronym for Parkinson disease sensory attention focused exercises, that is, exercises focused on sensorial attention which require concentration on the quality of movements and on sensory perception which one must try to never let decay. According to Joanne Shanahan of the English University of Limerick, research by specialized centers on the different effectiveness of different types of dance in various patients must be implemented because those to be introduced to dance therapy must be carefully selected and dance, whether tango or otherwise, is not for all parkinsonians, but they are necessary precise selection criteria for personalized interventions based on the age, gender and degree of disability of the individual patient also with regard to frequency, volume and intensity of dance exercises.