Are the Effects of Community-Based Dance on Parkinson Disease Severity, Balance, and Functional Mobility Reduced with Time? A 2-Year Prospective Pilot Study

Abstract

"Are the effects of community-based dance on Parkinson disease severity, balance, and functional mobility reduced with time? A 2-year prospective pilot study." The Journal od Alternative and Complementary Medicine.20,10. 757-763. (2014 Results: There were no differences between groups at baseline. A significant group-by-time interaction (F [2,8] = 17.59; p < 0.0001) was noted for the MDS-UPDRS III, with the AT group having lower scores at 12 and 24 months than the controls. Significant interactions were also noted for the Mini-BESTest, MDS-UPDRS II and I, and 6MWT. Conclusion: This is believed to be one of the longest-duration studies to examine the effects of exercise on PD. Participation in community-based dance classes over 2 years was associated with improvements in motor and nonmotor symptom severity, performance on activities of daily living, and balance in a small group of people with PD. This is noteworthy given the progressive nature of PD and the fact that the control group declined on some outcome measures over 2 years.

Effects of dual-task interventions on gait performance of patients with Parkinson’s Disease: A systematic review

“…24 Every PD patient completed the assessment and intervention procedures during the ON medication period, with exception of those in two studies in which patients were enrolled in the intervention ON medication, but evaluated during the OFF medication period. 25,26 All the included studies reported some sort of improvement on gait related outcomes, whether significant findings regarded gait speed, stride length and time, step length, cadence or even performance on standardized measures (e.g. TUG).…”

“…41 It is also important to highlight that some of the included studies reported significant findings on motor outcomes other than gait performance. Three studies found significant improvements in motor symptom severity in the training group in comparison to the control group, 25,26,29 while other three also reported significant changes in balance. 25,31 Thereby, it is important to explore whether gait performance enhancements are generalizable to more complex motor outcomes such as balance or if dual-task training also encompasses non-specific training effects which can even improve symptom severity in PD.…”

“…Challenges to dynamic balance are often incorporated into dancing, so that the user can get used to a changing environment while moving. 27 We found three articles 25,26,28 that compared an argentine tango dancing group to a control group which underwent an active control intervention.…”

“…Duncan & Earhart 25,26 published two articles regarding a 24 month clinical trial using Tango dancing. During the first year 25 , 62 patients (Tango = 26; Control = MedicalExpress (Sao Paulo, online) 2016 August;3(4):M160401 Dual-task intervention and Parkinson's disease Santos LAA, Campos C, Bento T, Lattari E, Nardi AE, Rocha NBF, Machado S. Significant time x group interaction (p = 0.001); TG ↑ in comparison to CG; No significant time x group x task interaction.…”

“…After the second year of intervention (24 months), 26 the ten remaining participants (Tango = 5; Control = 5) underwent the same evaluation protocol, because no significant between-group differences were detected.…”