Tango your way to a healthier mind.
NaplesNews.com
Tango and salsa aren’t just fun, they’re good for your mind – and for patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia.
At least that’s what one Naples doctor has found.
“All cultures throughout history have danced and it definitely gets something going,” Dr.Coleman said. “It definitely riles up something, I’d imagine the hormonal and the neuroendocrine system, that just makes people move into a certain state of being.”
At the Soroptimist event, Dr.Coleman will do a demonstration of each dance and then spend an hour teaching tango and an hour teaching salsa. He will teach the basic steps and help people practice with their significant other, a friend or another dancer.
“Everybody can learn how to dance,” he said. “The goal, more than to be a professional dancer, is to learn something new which keeps the brain stimulated, have a good time doing it, and have the brain get as many endorphins as you can. You also re-establish and embrace the emotional relationship with your significant other. Because these are couple dances, it’s a two-minute love affair.”
Dr.Coleman, who lived in Argentina for 18 years, worked with patients there who suffered from anxiety and found that dancing helped them calm down. He worked with about 20 people in Argentina and about 25 couples in Oklahoma.
For people who have Alzheimer’s, motor memory is often relatively intact until the later stages of the disease, Coleman said. He works to teach people the dances so that the motor movements become memories, and people can dance without much conscious effort.
“It’s a very slow, long process – like therapy is – and it’s also a new skill learned,” he said. “It keeps the brain active and it’s good exercise.”
Dr. Anton Coleman, a behavioral neurologist and endocrinologist, will be teaching tango and salsa as a form of therapy starting at the Soroptimists’ Heart-to-Heart Dance on April 10 in Naples , FL
He also plans to begin a free dancing group for people with Alzheimer’s and dementia and hopes to meet twice a month.
Anton Coleman MD,
Naples Medical Center.
info@tangobuenosaires.gob.ar
0800-333-7848 de L a V de 10 a 20 h
