The authors of the research study “Improvisational Movement to Improve Quality of Life in Older Adults With Early-Stage Dementia: A Pilot Study”, Dr. Christina Hugenschmidt, doctoral student Deepthi Thumuluri, and Professor Christina Soriano, are featured presenters at Dance Science Symposium 2023. For further information.
Written by Isabel Hansen
Edited by Kiley M. Baker and Dr. Aston K. McCullough
Amidst the whirlwind of my undergraduate career drawing to a close, dizzied by the pursuit of a sense of purpose and calloused by an unrelenting final push, one meaningful conversation took hold of my feet and planted them firmly on the ground beneath me. During a feedback session for my senior capstone project, which was an original dance improvisation program, one participant eagerly shared that she felt a new sense of power and connection within herself to address challenging situations – she gratefully attributed her elevation of power and connection to dance improvisation. For me, this feedback sparked a moment of realization that dance improvisation may be related to profound experiences, greater than I had previously realized, and it fueled a desire to learn more about dance improvisation and health.
A research study published in early 2022, “Improvisational Movement to Improve Quality of Life in Older Adults With Early-Stage Dementia: A Pilot Study” written by Dr. Christina Hugenschmidt, doctoral student Deepthi Thumuluri, and Professor Christina Soriano, contributes to the growing evidence that improvisational dance can be used as a method to improve health outcomes among individuals with neurodegenerative diseases. The scientific report included 10 participant dyads who were assigned to join either a control group or a dance improvisation-based intervention group that met for 60 minutes, two times per week, for 8 weeks.
The report indicates that participating in dance improvisation could potentially slow the rapid degeneration associated with dementia, and I became interested in how their program, the IMPROVment method, contributed to these results. The study showed the potential for dance improvisation to increase the size of the brain’s giant component, reduce fall risk, and improve brain efficiency and modular organization in adults with early-stage dementia.
In an interview with key researchers from the study, Dr. Christina Hugenschmidt, doctoral student Deepthi Thumuluri, and Professor Christina Soriano, we discussed the framework for the IMPROVment methodology implemented within the report and study design. Hugenschmidt designed and led the pilot study, Thumuluri was critically engaged with data processing, and Soriano designed and led the improvisation classes, codifying the IMPROVment method into what she describes as a “prompt-based curriculum.” Designing a research study using dance improvisation as an intervention required special considerations in terms of maintaining high intervention fidelity, Soriano emphasized, because improvisation is largely considered to be highly variable at its core. What stood out as important about this pilot study, Thumuluri remarked, is that the team was able to create a framework that used dance improvisation as a method of intervention using scientifically rigorous standards. Thus, the methods reported in the study are replicable and the IMPROVment method is accessible to researchers in the field.
Prior to conducting this research study, Soriano designed IMPROVment classes for adults with Parkinson’s Disease (PD). In facilitating IMPROVment classes for adults with PD, Soriano witnessed that dance improvisation was a feasible and engaging community intervention method, and Soriano became curious about which population groups could potentially benefit from this type of intervention. In reflecting on the IMPROVment classes developed for adults with PD, Hugenschmidt described the reaction of one of the participants to the prompt “dance what it feels like to have a freezing episode of Parkinson’s – The participant stood up and made one gesture of his head being cut off from the rest of his body, which had “startling sparseness” and “was the right choice for that group of people in that moment; it was a really powerful and emotional experience,” Dr. Hugenschmidt recalled. The nature of dance improvisation gives people permission to express themselves in whatever manner they require, resulting in a movement that is so unique, and impactful that members of an entire group could relate heavily to that one person’s chosen expression.
After the exploration of dance improvisation for Parkinson’s Disease concluded, the researchers selected those with dementia and mild cognitive impairment, and their caregivers as the target population for their pilot study. Both Soriano and Hugenschmidt felt that dance improvisation as a means of expression and physical activity was fitting for those with dementia due to the sense of agency it gives to participants; allowing everyone to operate safely within their bandwidth and to come as they are, with full authenticity. Soriano designed a scaffolded methodology to promote accessibility and to allow for class participants to advance to more complex prompts. Within the classes, participants build confidence and comfortability, allowing them to take greater risks, and in turn, “practice and learn life skills,” noted Soriano. Soriano reports that it is critical to encourage individuals with neurodegenerative diseases to relinquish themselves from excess fear, and enable them to pave new brain patterns and connections to combat the symptoms of dementia.
The results of this pilot study have led the researchers to conduct a full clinical trial titled “IMOVE: Improvisational Movement for People With Memory Loss and Their Caregivers.” Soriano reports observing a change in participants after each session, describing the participants as walking out with a “different movement confidence… that is perhaps posturally different. Perhaps there’s just a different light around people, a different sense of energy, a different focus, a different sense of purpose, a heightened sense of connection to the rest of the day.” This further supports the emerging idea that dance improvisation is a powerful tool that can be used to impact the lives of neurodivergent individuals by creating space for them to express, find stillness, breathe, and move.
Rather than creating and delivering a strict protocol for IMPROVment, Christina Soriano holds an annual training session where anyone interested in facilitating classes, from dance educators to healthcare practitioners, can learn how to make informed decisions to meet the unique needs of each group they may encounter. The training identifies and applies Laban-inspired principles, such as effort, time, flow, isolation, ongoingness, space, and shape, to a library of prompts, allowing the instructor to focus on the components of movement they want to emphasize in that particular class. They can then decide which prompts from the library connect to these components. This structure allows class instructors to operate under what Soriano describes as a “very strong skeleton.” Further information regarding the training sessions and the IMPROVment method can be located at https://improvment.wfu.edu/. The researchers encourage anyone interested in learning more about teaching the IMPROVment method to attend the training, so they will be able to share the benefits of improvisation with their communities, giving everyone the chance to dance.