Practising ballet moves helps physically and mentally
Tuesday December 6,2011
By Neil Norman
IN A BALLET rehearsal room near the Royal Albert Hall about 50 people are seated in a circle. A young lithe girl takes centre stage and performs a simple stretch, waving her arms from side to side in an elegant gesture familiar to ballet lovers.
The assembled company performs the same movement with varying degrees of success. She performs another position and puts it together with the first. We all follow suit. It feels like dancing.
In fact it is an exercise based on ballet movement that stretches muscles and improves co-ordination and stability. It is esecially important to the participants as they all suffer from Parkinson’s disease.
Parkinson’s is a neurological condition characterised by a lack of muscular control and an almost continuous tremor in the lips, hands and limbs.
It worsens as it progresses and although it can be controlled partially through drugs and exercise there is no cure.
At best it is a slightly embarrassing physical disability that brings a loss of physical confidence to the sufferer. At worst it is severely debilitating resulting in a life of uncoordinated movement and social alienation.
Parkinson’s sufferers risk losing a lot more than muscular coordination. Afraid of leaving their homes because of anxieties about falling over, dropping things or stares from unsympathetic strangers means many become reclusive and housebound resulting in a loss of social contact that can have a devastating psychological impact. At least two people in the class are in wheelchairs and many have walking sticks. Most are with companions or carers.
Dance For Parkinson’s scheme, initiated by English National Ballet (ENB) in conjunction with the dance department of South-west London’s Roehampton University, has been running for just over a year. Now with the help of a recent grant of £97,000 from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation they have set in motion a three-year programme of classes and research which it is hoped will prove beneficial to many of the 150,000 people in the UK who suffer from the condition.
Mary was diagnosed three months ago and is still attempting to process the news. “I played tennis until I was 75,” she says with a rueful smile. “I do feel much better already. The atmosphere helps. It is so friendly, jolly and positive.”
Like many people here she was introduced to the class through the organisation Parkinson’s UK. While she may have lost some aspects of her coordination she has not lost her sense of humour.
“I am completely non-musical and clumsy. I thought as long as they don’t try to make me sing I don’t mind having a go.”
Another class member John Harris, 70, has suffered from Parkinson’s disease for 23 years.
He has been to every class bar one in the past year. “I fall over about once a week,” he tells me. “The problem is that Parkinson’s makes you feel as though your feet are nailed to the floor.”
John says he felt the benefits after two or three weeks. “I feel good as soon as I come out of the class both physically and psychologically. I have a renewed feeling of confidence.”
If proof were needed John has twice walked out of the class forgetting to take his walking stick. “The first time someone brought it out to me. The second time I went back in and retrieved it myself.”
There is also a sense of shared experience that you wouldn’t get in a Pilates or yoga class, both of which are recommended for Parkinson’s sufferers and have shown beneficial results. However The Dance For Parkinson’s scheme extends the field of activity with apparently significant results.
Dr Sara Houston leads the research on the project at Roehampton University. Through a combination of electronic monitoring, interviews, film footage and diaries kept by the volunteers she and her team hope to reach a greater understanding of the benefits of this initiative and how it might proceed.
“Parkinson’s is socially isolating and I am interested in how these classes can affect social integration. Apart from the benefits of the exercises there is an added value of dance involving imagination through storytelling.
“If you move to music other parts of the brain can light up. Plus the common experience of the group helps communication.”
The dance exercises specifically for Parkinson’s sufferers began in America at the Brooklyn-based Mark Morris dance company with which ENB has a link.
The voluntary research aspect is a little more controversial. Not all the sufferers sign up for electronic monitoring of muscular and neurological measurements because as Mary says: “How will they distinguish between the benefits of a dance and a Pilates class? Most of us do both.”
“It’s a big question,” agrees Dr Houston. “It’s also not the only one. We have to take into account the drugs people take and whether they are ‘on’ or ‘off’ their diets. There are a whole host of complications which we need to bear in mind. We cannot say for sure dance is helping. All we can do is say what we see, what we can measure and what people tell us.”
Judging by the smiles at the end of the class and comments from people like Mary and John something, somewhere is going right.
For more information about Dance For Parkinson’s:
contact Nick Ephgrave at Parkinson’s UK on 0844 225 3709 or
email nephgrave@parkinsons.org.uk or visit www.parkinsons.org.uk
.
