Dance Movement as a form of therapy for Children with Cerebral Palsy

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Dance Movement as a form of therapy for Children
with Cerebral Palsy

• By
• Gayathri Ganapathy
• (Research Student)
• School of Psychology
• Brayford Pool

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DANCE

• Dance generally refers to human movement either
  used as a form of expression or presented in a
  social, spiritual or  performance setting
  .

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MOVEMENT

• Is motion a change of position that may or may
  not entail a change of location.

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DANCE MOVEMENT THERAPY

• Dance movement therapy is defined as the
  psychotherapeutic use of movement and dance
  through which a person can engage creatively in a
  process to further their emotional, cognitive,
  physical and social integration (ADMTUK 2002 1)

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REVIEW OF LITERATURE I

• Exercise and Childrens Intelligence, Cognition
  and Academic Achievement (Tomporowski, Davis,
  Miller, Naglieri, 2007 )
• It was found, that similar to adults, exercise
  facilitates childrens executive function.
• Simple exercises helps in the enhancement of
  childrens mental functioning central to
  cognitive development.

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REVIEW OF LITERATURE II

• Aerobic Fitness and Neurocognitive Function in
  Healthy Preadolescent Children ( Hillman,
  Castelli, Buck 2005)
• The findings indicated that fitness may be
  related to better cognitive functioning in
  preadolescents and have implications for
  increasing cognitive health in children and
  adults.

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REVIEW OF LITERATURE III

• Dance/Movement Therapeutic Methods In Management
  of Dementia, Letters to the Editor ( Hokkanen,
  Rantala, Remes, Harkonen, Viramo, Winblad, 2003)
• Overall cognitive level of the Alzheimers
  patients- unchanged
• Clear progression not seen during the 5-month
  -given the nature of the disease.
• However staff observed increase in the
  willingness to interact socially.

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• In another study-older patients with brain trauma
  or non-progressing stroke cognitive performance
  was better in a DMT experimental group than in
  controls.
• Under favourable circumstances, DMT may be
  beneficial to higher cortical functions.

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CEREBRAL PALSY

• Cerebral palsy is a general term used by doctors
  to refer to a set of neurological conditions that
  affect a child's movement and co-ordination.
  Neurological conditions affect the brain and
  nervous system.
• Cerebral palsy is caused by damage to the brain,
  which normally occurs before, during or soon
  after birth. Known possible causes of cerebral
  palsy include
• infection in early pregnancy
• a difficult or premature birth
• bleeding in the babys brain
• abnormal brain development in the baby

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REVIEW OF LITERATURE IV

• Activity, Activity, Activity Rethinking Our
  Physical Therapy Approach to Cerebral Palsy (
  Damino, STEP Conference, 2005)
• More the motor activity, better physical and
  mental health leading to better cognitive
  performance.
• Recent studies even promote neural and functional
  recovery in people with damaged nervous system.

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• Intense upper limb training shown to be effective
  in management of Cerebral Palsy.
• Although the benefits of fairly intense physical
  exercise programs such as strength training are
  becoming increasingly well recognized, few
  studies on the positive effects of generalized
  activity programs have been conducted in
  individuals with cerebral palsy.

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FURTHERING THE RESEARCH

• More research is required and is currently under
  way to design and test the efficacy of
  activity-based strategies in Cerebral Palsy.

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AIM OBJECTIVES

• To study the impact of dance movements and use of
  hand mudras (hand movements/postures) on higher
  cognition (attention and memory) as well as gross
  and fine motor in children with Cerebral Palsy.
• To assess higher cognitive abilities and gross
  and fine motor skills pre and post dance training

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PLAN

• Pre-tests determining higher cognitive processes
  of attention and memory as well as the gross and
  fine motor skills need to be conducted. The
  baselines are thus determined.
• Children with cerebral palsy are then trained for
  a period of 6-8 weeks with dance movements and
  hand mudras.
• At the end of the scheduled time period the tests
  are conducted again and the obtained baselines
  are compared for any significant differences
  observed.
• Cultural differences in the use of different
  music with different samples can also be observed

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ASSUMPTIONS/EXPECTED RESULTS

• It is assumed that children between the ages of 7
  to 14 years will show an improvement in their
  gross/ fine motor skills as well as higher
  cognitive abilities when tested, after
  considerable amount of training is given to them.

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Q A
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REFERENCES

• Payne.H 2006 2nd Edition Dance Movement Therapy
  (Theory, Research and Practice)
• Hokkanen et al Dance/Movement Therapeutic
  Methods in Management of Dementia, Letters to the
  Editor-Jags April 2003- Vol.51
• Hillman et al Aerobic Fitness and Neuro
  cognitive Function in Healthy Preadolescent
  children Medicine Science In Sports
  Exercise June 2005
• Tomporowski et al Exercise and Childrens
  Intelligence, cognition and academic achievement
  Springer Science Business Media, LLC 2007
• Diane L Damiano Activity, Activity, Activity
  Rethinking Our Physical Therapy Approach to
  Cerebral Palsy STEP Conference

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THANK YOU!