This story appears in the Spring 2024 issue of RED Magazine.
Residents of two Denver-area senior living facilities are on the path to better health thanks to weekly classes taught by students and faculty from Metropolitan State University of Denver’s dance program.
Senior lecturers Nicole Predke, M.A., and Leslie Merrill-Schmidt, M.A., co-directors of the university’s dance program, said dance taps into different areas of the brain, promotes neuroplasticity, and helps prevent dementia. said that it is an ideal health-promoting activity for the elderly. .
“Because we’re using all the different parts of the brain, we think it not only strengthens neural connections, but also builds new neural connections,” Predki says. “I like to think that when we dance, we’re just always making connections.”
For the past few years, Mr. Predke and Mr. Schmidt have taken turns offering dance and movement classes weekly at the Balfour Senior Living facility near the Auraria campus. And last summer, Schmidt led her MSU Denver students on her 13-week summer outdoor experience at Park Hill Residence. Park Hill Residences is operated by the nonprofit organization Senior Housing Options, which provides subsidized and affordable care to seniors and people with disabilities.
“We met every week for an hour and a half,” Schmidt said. “It was an intergenerational exchange between students and Park Hill residents. And it turned out to be very successful.”
students take the lead
Schmidt and his students had residents explore fundamental movement patterns that are learned early in life and connect the brain and body. Schmidt said rethinking these patterns has been shown to benefit older adults and adults with disabilities.
Park Hill residents were coached through breathing patterns and scripted movement exercises aimed at strengthening that connection. Schmidt said a key goal in working with residents was to increase somatic awareness, which involves consciously attuning to sensations and experiences within the body.
She noted that the emphasis on connecting with the inner senses is a departure from the usual way dance is taught. “In traditional dance studies, there is a lot of emphasis on the appearance of the movement,” she said. “Certainly it’s important, so we have to train for it.
“But just as important is being able to connect with our inner emotions and sensations and tap into how we can express them outwardly. So we try to use our bodies to create the perfect picture. Rather than working with the senses, the senses, and the space of imagination and play.”
Each week, Schmidt and his students asked residents to focus on different parts of their bodies, paying attention to proprioception, the sense of where the body is in space. They also investigated possible stories related to different parts of the body. For example, feet or legs can be associated with grounding, establishing a position, or paving your way through life.
Residents were then encouraged to draw their body parts and complete creative, reflective sentences in response to specific prompts. They then developed group poetry and group dance, which evolved into short dance films.
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The summer outdoor experience appears to have been beneficial not only to Park Hill residents, but also to MSU Denver students. Her fourth-year student, Nohealani Rufo, was so fascinated by the process that she ended up continuing to engage with her residents for her senior project.
Rufo, who grew up in Hawaii, led a “Love Your Body” workshop series this fall based on the Native Hawaiian hula movement. “(The theme) was ‘value your body,’ because it’s unique to you,” she said. Most of the series took place with participants seated in chairs to allow everyone to participate.
It took her a while to warm up to the residents, who range in age from 70 to 90, but it was incredible to see them “light up” as they learned about her culture, including ghost stories and local legends. Rufo said it was almost impossible.
During a series of workshops, Rufo noticed that each week the residents were able to recall movements they had previously practiced together. “It’s much easier to learn movements than to do something academic,” she said.
Before graduating in December, Rufo was worried about finding a job, but an unexpected opportunity came along.
She was given the opportunity to apply for the position of Activities Coordinator at Park Hill Residences. She started in January. “When we spoke to the residents, they were very excited,” she said.
brain movement
Predke and Schmidt will take turns offering hour-long sessions in a variety of dance styles at Balfour. In the first half, Predoki will lead in ballet and jazz, while Schmidt will perform ballet and tap. Classes are held in a small dance studio with mirrored walls and a bar.
Predki, who worked in a science lab while doing her undergraduate thesis research at Columbia University, is fascinated by neuroscience research that suggests dance and creative movement may protect against dementia. . She cited a 2003 study from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine that tracked the leisure activities of about 500 people living in nursing homes.
The researchers classified some activities, such as reading and crossword puzzles, as cognitive activities, and others, such as dancing and tennis, as physical activities. They followed the cohort over a number of years to see who developed symptoms of dementia.
“They showed that crossword puzzles and some of those things had an impact,” Predki said. “But with the exception of dancing, none of the physical activities had an effect. Dementia rates were reduced by 76% in those who participated in dance. Taking dance seriously, which has been relegated to the little box of ‘entertainment’ This was a surprise since no one else does. ”
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Predki also mentioned a 2008 study in which researchers conducted neuroimaging studies on amateur tango dancers and found that certain brain areas were abnormally activated while the dancers were moving. did. “It was the motor cortex, somatosensory cortex, basal ganglia, and cerebellum,” she says. “All of those things go together. You’re working on executive function, long-term memory, spatial awareness.”
Other studies have shown that movement through dance can help people living with Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s disease training). Predoki said she has seen firsthand how speaking and moving to structured rhythms can help people with the disease move better.
Learning new dance steps is also a gift of memory. “You have to learn (the steps) yourself, but you also react to your environment, you react to rhythm, you react to sounds,” she said. “And you’re also reacting to the people you’re dancing with.”
Dancing releases serotonin, the “feel good” neurotransmitter in the brain, and is known to improve overall physical fitness.
“With an aging population, you’re having fun, you’re having community experiences, you’re not being judged, you’re part of an inclusive community, you’re working on these really important physical skills. ,” Predki said. “If you can improve your balance, flexibility, strength, and improve your gait, you’ll have more confidence in your balance, and that helps people too. I don’t understand why we don’t dance all the time.”