Balance, Body Motion, and Muscle Activity After High-Volume Short-Term Dance-Based Rehabilitation in Persons With Parkinson Disease: A Pilot Study.
J Lucas McKay, Lena H Ting, Madeleine E Hackney
PMID 27576092WHAT IT FOUND
Three weeks of high-volume Adapted Tango was feasible in 22 people with Parkinson disease.
Some balance and disease severity scores improved, but walking speed and several other outcomes did not change. Without a control group, this is not proof the dance caused the gains.
Key findings
01Adherence was 77%, with a 95% confidence interval of 61% to 93%, and 20 of 26 recruited participants were observed in the intervention.
02At posttest, Berg Balance Scale, Fullerton Advanced Balance Scale, and Dynamic Gait Index scores increased (P <0.01, P <0.001, P =0.01), and the increases remained significant at one-month follow-up (P <0.001, P <0.001, P =0.04).
03No changes were observed on the 6-minute walk test, functional reach, Activities-Specific Balance Confidence questionnaire, Freezing of Gait questionnaire, gait speed, two-footed Jump test, or Timed Up and Go.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
There was no control group, so changes cannot be attributed to Adapted Tango. The study was a pilot with 22 participants analysed and was underpowered. Four participants withdrew before pretest, and two of the 22 analysed participants withdrew before posttest. Many outcome measures were tested. This makes chance findings more likely. The BBS change was 3.4 points, below the 7-point difference the paper cites as the smallest clinically important difference and below the 5-point minimal detectable change. The perturbation testing used a convenience sample of 9 participants, so unknown selection biases limit generalizability. The speech improvement was unexpected, had no known mechanism, and may be spurious. The cohort was relatively higher functioning than the reference population for BBS minimal detectable change in PD, so ceiling effects may have occurred.
Declared interests
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that Adapted Tango improves balance in Parkinson disease. This was a 3-week pilot without a control group, and the authors state changes cannot be attributed to the intervention.