Wearing all black and sitting on a tufted white ottoman in her sunlit living room, Sarah Robichaud is teaching a routine inspired by modern ballet to 80 students on Zoom.
The Bolshoi-trained dancer spreads her arms wide in exaggerated movements to a slow cover of The Proclaimers' "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" as her students get into the groove.
"We're just going to start with a gentle, gentle sway, back and forth," Robichaud says to the group. "I want you to think that there's a thread attached to your wrist and someone's pulling that thread from side to side."
Many of her students are seated as well. More than half of them have Parkinson's disease and typically movement can be difficult, but when they try to mirror her fluid and graceful movements, a look of ease comes over them.
Growing evidence shows that dancing can boost brain health and help manage symptoms of neurocognitive and movement disorders, including Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer's, dementia and brain injury. For example, a 2021 York University study showed that weekly dance training improved motor function and daily living for those with mild to moderate Parkinson's. This piggybacks on other findings that show how activities that target balance, coordination, flexibility, creativity and memory work can improve Parkinson's symptoms.
Robichaud started Dancing with Parkinson's in 2007 as a way to give back to her community. A few years later, her grandfather was diagnosed with the disease. Robichaud was able to dance with him in his long-term care home until his final days.
"The compassion and care that I have for our dancers is that they're all my grandfather," she says.
Recently, one of her students, a man in his 50s who had been adamant that dancing wasn't for him, said that he now has more dexterity in his hands and generally moves more freely.
"I can't deny how this is changing my life," he told her.
So what is it about dance that's different from a brisk walk or other aerobic exercises?
Dance as Medicine
Helena Blumen, a cognitive scientist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, says the intricate mental multitasking that dance requires engages various parts of the brain at the same time, which can lead to the strengthening of neural connections across different regions. Basically, dancing requires more brain power than simpler repetitive exercises.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1394809325/1709018477/articles/o3roK9oB71709029263931/uTSYjx80I1709029375405.jpg]
"It's socially demanding, cognitively demanding and physically demanding," she says.
Anyone who's ever felt the irresistible urge to sway to a favorite song knows that combining music and movement can lift your mood and melt away stress. But there's a lot more happening in your brain when you're trying to follow even the easiest choreography.
"In dance, we have to learn patterns; we have to think symmetrically and asymmetrically; we have to remember sequences," says David Leventhal, program director at the Mark Morris Dance for PD program, where Robichaud trained.
The effect extends beyond dance class to the real world. Tasks like navigating the kitchen or walking to the bus stop can become more attainable if they are regarded as choreography.
While scientists are still learning how the mechanisms of dancing work in the brain, a clearer picture is beginning to emerge. In 2018, researchers at Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg,
Germany, did MRI scans of older adults who had participated in one of two programs over a six-month period. One group practiced dance and the other did a traditional exercise program with cycling and strength training.
While both groups improved their level of physical fitness, the dancers grew more white and gray matter in the parts of the brain responsible for cognitive processes, such as working memory, attention and high-level thinking. Both white and gray matter typically decline as we get older, making communication in the brain lag and certain cognitive tasks, such as multitasking and problem-solving, tougher.
Together, the researchers hypothesize, these brain changes contribute to more neuroplasticity, which is the brain's ability to form new connections and pathways. Imagine your brain is like a city with loads of roads and pathways. Brain plasticity is akin to the city's ability to build new roads, repair old ones or even change the direction of traffic based on how often the routes are used and what the city needs.
So just as cities adapt and change over time to meet the needs of their residents, our brains can reshape and adjust based on our experiences and learning. What's more, the dance group showed an increase in blood plasma BDNF, a protein that plays a crucial role in developing brain plasticity.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1394809325/1709018477/articles/o3roK9oB71709029263931/z1OtpLCPp1709029406183.jpg]
In a 2022 study, Blumen and other researchers from Albert Einstein College of Medicine found that social ballroom dancing was associated with reduced atrophy in the hippocampusa brain region that is key to memory functioning and is particularly affected by Alzheimer's disease. The dancers were compared with other adults over age 65 who walked on a treadmill. In other words, the dancers' memory center isn't shrinking as quickly, improving their overall quality of life and potentially reducing the risk of dementia.
Similar studies have shown the benefits of dance for people with conditions ranging from MS and Huntington's disease to autism and depressi...
The Bolshoi-trained dancer spreads her arms wide in exaggerated movements to a slow cover of The Proclaimers' "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" as her students get into the groove.
"We're just going to start with a gentle, gentle sway, back and forth," Robichaud says to the group. "I want you to think that there's a thread attached to your wrist and someone's pulling that thread from side to side."
Many of her students are seated as well. More than half of them have Parkinson's disease and typically movement can be difficult, but when they try to mirror her fluid and graceful movements, a look of ease comes over them.
Growing evidence shows that dancing can boost brain health and help manage symptoms of neurocognitive and movement disorders, including Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer's, dementia and brain injury. For example, a 2021 York University study showed that weekly dance training improved motor function and daily living for those with mild to moderate Parkinson's. This piggybacks on other findings that show how activities that target balance, coordination, flexibility, creativity and memory work can improve Parkinson's symptoms.
Robichaud started Dancing with Parkinson's in 2007 as a way to give back to her community. A few years later, her grandfather was diagnosed with the disease. Robichaud was able to dance with him in his long-term care home until his final days.
"The compassion and care that I have for our dancers is that they're all my grandfather," she says.
Recently, one of her students, a man in his 50s who had been adamant that dancing wasn't for him, said that he now has more dexterity in his hands and generally moves more freely.
"I can't deny how this is changing my life," he told her.
So what is it about dance that's different from a brisk walk or other aerobic exercises?
Dance as Medicine
Helena Blumen, a cognitive scientist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, says the intricate mental multitasking that dance requires engages various parts of the brain at the same time, which can lead to the strengthening of neural connections across different regions. Basically, dancing requires more brain power than simpler repetitive exercises.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1394809325/1709018477/articles/o3roK9oB71709029263931/uTSYjx80I1709029375405.jpg]
"It's socially demanding, cognitively demanding and physically demanding," she says.
Anyone who's ever felt the irresistible urge to sway to a favorite song knows that combining music and movement can lift your mood and melt away stress. But there's a lot more happening in your brain when you're trying to follow even the easiest choreography.
"In dance, we have to learn patterns; we have to think symmetrically and asymmetrically; we have to remember sequences," says David Leventhal, program director at the Mark Morris Dance for PD program, where Robichaud trained.
The effect extends beyond dance class to the real world. Tasks like navigating the kitchen or walking to the bus stop can become more attainable if they are regarded as choreography.
While scientists are still learning how the mechanisms of dancing work in the brain, a clearer picture is beginning to emerge. In 2018, researchers at Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg,
Germany, did MRI scans of older adults who had participated in one of two programs over a six-month period. One group practiced dance and the other did a traditional exercise program with cycling and strength training.
While both groups improved their level of physical fitness, the dancers grew more white and gray matter in the parts of the brain responsible for cognitive processes, such as working memory, attention and high-level thinking. Both white and gray matter typically decline as we get older, making communication in the brain lag and certain cognitive tasks, such as multitasking and problem-solving, tougher.
Together, the researchers hypothesize, these brain changes contribute to more neuroplasticity, which is the brain's ability to form new connections and pathways. Imagine your brain is like a city with loads of roads and pathways. Brain plasticity is akin to the city's ability to build new roads, repair old ones or even change the direction of traffic based on how often the routes are used and what the city needs.
So just as cities adapt and change over time to meet the needs of their residents, our brains can reshape and adjust based on our experiences and learning. What's more, the dance group showed an increase in blood plasma BDNF, a protein that plays a crucial role in developing brain plasticity.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1394809325/1709018477/articles/o3roK9oB71709029263931/z1OtpLCPp1709029406183.jpg]
In a 2022 study, Blumen and other researchers from Albert Einstein College of Medicine found that social ballroom dancing was associated with reduced atrophy in the hippocampusa brain region that is key to memory functioning and is particularly affected by Alzheimer's disease. The dancers were compared with other adults over age 65 who walked on a treadmill. In other words, the dancers' memory center isn't shrinking as quickly, improving their overall quality of life and potentially reducing the risk of dementia.
Similar studies have shown the benefits of dance for people with conditions ranging from MS and Huntington's disease to autism and depressi...
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Reader's Digest (Digital) - 1 Issue, March - April 2024