Tango offers Parkinson’s sufferers relief

19 Oct 2016

Research suggests learning the tango may help those with Parkinson’s to gain more control over their balance and movement.

 

A recent study conducted by physical therapy professor Gammon Earhart at Washington University’s School of Medicine has revealed that dancing the tango helps Parkinson’s sufferers improve their balance and mobility. 

The disease takes a heavy toll on the body, with patients experiencing symptoms like tremors, a body that doesn’t want to keep going and tenuous balance. Gradually, social life begins to lose its appeal and sufferers often retreat from the outside world.

While learning the tango is a challenge, especially for one who’s gradually losing control over their own body, the dance’s complex steps and taut-muscled movements gives Parkinson’s sufferers a new focus for their body, ultimately helping to slow down, or reduce, the effects of the disease.

Research suggests the tango may be particularly helpful for improving balance and functional mobility in patients, since it requires specific steps that involve rhythmically walking forward and backward. This may be particularly helpful for walking difficulties, especially for freezing of gait and to prevent backward falls. In addition, tango requires working memory, control of attention, and multitasking to incorporate newly learned and previously learned dance elements, to stay in rhythm with the music, and maneuver around others on the dance floor.

The proof’s in the pudding

After discovering such research, Melbourne-based dance teacher, Rina Sawaya started giving lessons to people with Parkinson’s – including her father who has been diagnosed with the disease. She discovered the movement helped him, along with fellow Parkinson’s sufferers, to find relief from the disease, giving them a sense of freedom.

“I didn't know much about Parkinson's and when I looked it up, to my great surprise I found that there was research that thought the tango was beneficial to people with Parkinson's,” she said.

“Many participants say that they feel much safer, more stable and more balanced.

“You have that connection with another human being and the joy of being able to connect and work together with another human being.” One of Rina’s students, Mei Cheah, initially thought the tango was “too sexy” for her, but now finds the practice to be of great benefit. These days, Mei and her husband take every opportunity they get to show off their new skills in
public.

“Whenever there's a wedding we used to sit it out. Next time we go to a wedding we're going to show it off,” she said.

“The other day when we were at the hospital, when there was a long corridor with no one around, he just spontaneously picked me up and said let’s do the tango and we started to do our steps along the corridor.”

For fellow student Joan Sharman, tango offers an escape from Parkinson's disease.

“I don't like it to define who I am. I’ve got to deal with it all the time,” she said. “When you're dancing I think you go to a different place. That sense of freedom is the best way I can describe it.”