{"id":10896,"date":"2025-12-15T18:58:46","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T10:58:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/?p=10896"},"modified":"2025-12-15T18:58:47","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T10:58:47","slug":"dance-effective-in-fighting-against-cognitive-decline-in-parkinsons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/dance-effective-in-fighting-against-cognitive-decline-in-parkinsons\/","title":{"rendered":"Dance effective in fighting against cognitive decline in Parkinson\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A\u00a0new study<\/a>\u00a0led by researchers at York University shows that dance can be beneficial in halting the cognitive decline associated with Parkinson\u2019s disease and, for some participants, they even showed signs of improvement. Faculty of Health Associate Professor\u00a0Joseph DeSouza<\/a>, co-author of the study, says since cognition is nearly always expected to decline as the illness progresses and this was a multi-year study, the findings are quite remarkable.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe classic progression of Parkinson’s disease is that cognition gets bad as well as motor symptoms, and some people already have significantly impaired cognition by the time they get to a diagnosis,\u201d says DeSouza, who worked closely on the study with lead author Simran Rooprai, a second-year interdisciplinary master\u2019s student at York. \u201cSo finding that no one in the dance group had further cognitive decline over six years, we think that\u2019s pretty significant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study, published in the\u00a0Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease<\/em>, looked at 43 participants from a group with Parkinson\u2019s participating in the Sharing Dance Parkinson\u2019s program at the National Ballet of Canada and the Dance for Parkinson\u2019s Disease program through Trinity St. Paul\u2019s Church, both located in Toronto, and a reference group of 28 people with Parkinson\u2019s who were sedentary and not engaged in any physical activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dance classes would begin with a seated warm-up, followed by \u201cbarre\u201d exercises, and sessions ended with floorwork dances. One group was also taught a specific choreography in preparation for an upcoming performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers found that the cognitive scores for the dance group had improved compared to the reference group, where they saw no changes, or a slight decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rooprai says the research shows that dance could help with cognitive preservation, or perhaps even improvement in those with Parkinson\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can’t really fix the brain, but we’re trying to show that with dance, maybe we can delay the onset of further cognitive decline,\u201d says Rooprai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Parkinson\u2019 disease is most closely associated with the characteristic tremors of the disease, it is also associated with cognitive decline, with four out of five people with the illness eventually experiencing severe cognition problems as the disease progresses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier research led by DeSouza at York that he worked on with fellow author and former York PhD student Karolina Bearss, now a professor at Algoma University, has shown the benefits of dance for depression<\/a> and motor symptoms<\/a> of the illness, suggesting the benefits of dance are widespread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDance engages many parts of the brain,\u201d says Rooprai. \u201cWhile dancing, you\u2019re listening to music, learning new steps, remembering the different sequences, and you\u2019re engaging with other dancers so you\u2019re aware of your surroundings. Dance is physical, mental, and social all at once.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeSouza and Rooprai are working on a follow-up study in collaboration with the Baycrest Academy for Research and Education, where they will look at how working memory is affected for people with Parkinson\u2019s taking weekly dance classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGiven how dance has so many different positive impacts on cognition, we expect to see improvements,\u201d says DeSouza.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dance can be beneficial in halting the cognitive decline associated with Parkinson\u2019s disease and, for some participants, they even showed signs of improvement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[24,23,802,19,2269,20],"class_list":["post-10896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wellness-2","tag-benefits-of-dancing","tag-dance","tag-exercise","tag-health","tag-mental-exercise","tag-wellness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10896"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10897,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10896\/revisions\/10897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}