Set-dancing's 'reel' benefit for Parkinson's sufferers
Therapeutic benefits of Irish set dancing were recently noticed much closer to home, in a pub in Feakle, Co Clare when an Italian neurologist playing music at a traditional music festival, noticed a man shaking and unsteady on his feet with Parkinson’s disease enter the pub, drop his walking stick and dance fluidly to a reel played on the doctor’s guitar.
Dr Daniele Volpe, medical director at St John of God Hospital’s Parkinson’s Centre in Venice found this improvement in the man so remarkable that he set up a study to test the benefits of set dancing for his patients, which has grown into an international, multidisciplinary study. The findings will be presented at a conference in Feakle, Co Clare tomorrow, in the place where Volpe originally made the discovery.
