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| Kim Mu-hyun, a dance teacher at Dance for PD, poses during a class held online Dec. 17. Screen capture from Zoom |
"It is cold outside, but let's move our bodies and dance," Dance for PD instructor Kim Mu-hyun said during an online session held over Zoom, Dec. 17, participated in by 10 patients with Parkinson's disease.
During the one-hour class, the patients, who were seated, started to follow Kim's instructions which were for simple movements of the arms and hands. Some of them had to get help from their care partners, but most of the time it appeared that they followed the movements of the instructor and enjoyed moving their bodies to classical and upbeat dance music.
Not many people, even the patients themselves, expected that sufferers from Parkinson's would be able to dance because the neurological disease basically makes movement problematic as nerve-muscle interfaces break down, making even simple body movements difficult with symptoms such as tremors, rigidity, slowness and problems with balance. At the moment, treatments cannot cure the disease, only slow its progression.
However, Dance for PD, created in the U.S. and now operating in more than 300 communities in 25 countries and introduced to Korea 2017 to give dancers work, helps patients mimic dance movements to release the joy of movement. Furthermore, although there is little documentary evidence, many patients in Korea have found the dancing eases their symptoms. As of 2019 there are 125,607 patients here suffering from Parkinson's disease.
"One of the symptoms of the disease is that sufferers have difficulty making facial expressions. A patient who joined the program in 2017 was unable to control their facial muscles, but after a few years they were able to make some expressions and also showed some improvement in walking. It was a rewarding moment for me as a teacher," Kim told The Korea Times, adding that dance can be help people both mentally and physically.
He wrote his master's thesis about the effects of the program, noting that it helped patients significantly improve their balance and walking.
"A medical staff member told me that they saw my wife, who has Parkinson's disease and can hardly move without medicine, dancing alone in a hospital room when I wasn't there. The staff were surprised because like many patients with the disease, she couldn't even move her legs or hold a spoon by herself… I think dancing can wake up the brain and some human instincts that help people move their bodies," said Kim Young-chul, a care partner for his wife who was diagnosed with the disease about 20 years ago.
The program run by the Dancers' Career Development Center in Seoul is in its fourth year. Even though it has to be held online as the number of COVID-19 cases here is spiking, since its introduction with a seminar by Dance for PD founding teacher David Leventhal in 2017, patients have been happy to participate in the program. Up to 984 have joined as of Dec. 22 according to the dance center. Fifteen instructors who majored in dance, teach the patients in sessions that have been held in the center in Seoul and some hospitals in the provinces.
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| Dance for PD Courtesy of Mark Morris Dance Group |
The program not only helps patients cope with the disease, but also works as therapy as many people tend to isolate themselves due to it.
"Through the program, patients and care partners are able to interact with each other and get updates about the disease, which help them cope with depression and other issues. For me, the program is like an oasis in a dessert," Kim Young-chul added.
The program is basically an implementation of the original movements from the U.S. version, but instructors often introduce new choreographies and Korean music that is familiar to the patients and which they find more entertaining.
"When opening up the session, instructors start with small muscle movements because the patients' bodies are so stiff. Many instructors later introduce ballet movements and music from Romeo and Juliet. But I thought most of my Korean patients are old and so would not be familiar with the story. So, instead of the repertoire, I and my colleagues tried to introduce songs familiar to Koreans such as trot or famous pop songs," Kim Mu-hyun said.
Even though the program is used by many patients and in 2018 even developed into "Dance for Dementia," a dance program for patients with dementia, he hopes that it will become more widely accepted nationwide.
"I hope the dance program can be widely introduced into the country so that many patients can enjoy dance and get some improvement in their illness. So far, the program has been useful to patients living in Seoul."
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