Background and purpose: The objectives of this pilot study were to (1) evaluate the feasibility and investigate the efficacy of a 3-week, high-volume (450 minutes per week) Adapted Tango intervention for community-dwelling individuals with mild-moderate Parkinson disease (PD) and (2) investigate the potential efficacy of Adapted Tango in modifying electromyographic (EMG) activity and center of body mass (CoM) displacement during automatic postural responses to support surface perturbations.
Methods: Individuals with PD (n = 26) were recruited for high-volume Adapted Tango (15 lessons, 1.5 hour each over 3 weeks). Twenty participants were assessed with clinical balance and gait measures before and after the intervention. Nine participants were also assessed with support-surface translation perturbations.
Results: Overall adherence to the intervention was 77%. At posttest, peak forward CoM displacement was reduced (4.0 ± 0.9 cm, pretest, vs 3.7 ± 1.1 cm, posttest; P = 0.03; Cohen's d = 0.30) and correlated to improvements on Berg Balance Scale (ρ = -0.68; P = 0.04) and Dynamic Gait Index (ρ = -0.75; P = 0.03). Overall antagonist onset time was delayed (27 ms; P = 0.02; d = 0.90) and duration was reduced (56 ms, ≈39%, P = 0.02; d = 0.45). Reductions in EMG magnitude were also observed (P < 0.05).
Discussion and conclusions: Following participation in Adapted Tango, changes in kinematic and some EMG measures of perturbation responses were observed in addition to improvements in clinical measures. We conclude that 3-week, high-volume Adapted Tango is feasible and represents a viable alternative to longer duration adapted dance programs.Video Abstract available for more insights from the authors (see Supplemental Digital Content 1, http://links.lww.com/JNPT/A143).