A Fun Way For Parkinson’s Patients To Prevent Falls in

The rate of falls is high in Parkinson’s disease patients because they tend to have reduced control over their movements and balance.

A new study from Candido Mendes University, State University of Rio de Janeiro, and Rio de Janeiro State University, published in the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity, now reveals a surprisingly effective, fun way to restore postural control and prevent falls.

The researchers selected the 11 best studies they could find, with 393 Parkinson’s disease patients as subjects.

Of these, 211 were trained and supervised to perform dance therapy, while the other 182 were used as controls without such therapy.

These researchers were specifically interested in whether dance therapy could work over the short term, not only when practiced over the long term.

Indeed, they found that this was the case and that past studies backed the performance of dance therapy as a way to improve postural control among Parkinson’s sufferers.

This means that you do not have to dance for months or years to improve control over your motor symptoms, even though that would probably be best.

In fact, an international group that specializes in dance therapy for Parkinson’s patients, called Dance for PD, lists both long-term and short-term studies on their website, and they could find dozens of studies that support the effectiveness of this therapy.

The benefits are wide-ranging, promoting everything from self-efficacy, better mood, cognitive abilities, balance, stability, gate, flexibility, stamina, movement, participation in social activities, and so forth.

But even better than dance is to use simple lifestyle changes to boost dopamine levels in the brain and therefore put Parkinson’s to a halt or even slightly reverse it. I’ll explain these simple lifestyle changes here…