Constantina is coordinating a project that aims to test whether a structured dance intervention can improve dance (i.e., movement synchronized to a beat) and speech performance in Parkinson’s Disease (PD) patients with speech deficits, such as dysarthria. Our plan is to assess dance and speech performance, as well as brain activation patterns (via functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) in PD patients with speech deficits before and after a 12-week period of dance therapy. Dance sessions will take place twice a week.

 

This interdisciplinary project will bring together dancers, dance therapists, brain researchers, and speech specialists, and will be made possible through the collaboration between the following initiatives/institutes: Hunter College (City University of New York), Mark Morris Dance Group’s Dance for Parkinson’s Disease program, Rockefeller University, and New York University (Center for the Ballet and the Arts). 

The pictures used in this gallery are from the Mark Morris Dance Group’s Dance for Parkinson’s Disease program’s website.