Tango is the national dance of Argentina, known for its passion, precision and heart. In a hospital in Buenos Aires, it has another purpose: as a therapy for patients with Parkinson’s disease. Once a week, about a dozen patients come to Ramos Mejía Hospital to dance — a session that uses the movements of tango to help address issues of balance, stiffness and coordination. The goal is to give them approaches to movement that they can use in their daily lives, as well as a social and emotional boost from moving to music.

The programme began about 15 years ago, inspired by a patient who had danced tango since childhood and found it offered strategies that improved her mobility and gait problems, said Dr Nélida Garretto, a neurologist who helped spearhead the sessions.

Dr Tomoko Arakaki, another neurologist leading the programme, said Parkinson’s patients can struggle with the stop-and-start motions of walking and can benefit from practicing the “slow, short steps” and pauses of tango. Dr Garretto said that because tango involves "multitasking with motor stimuli, visual stimuli and auditory stimuli", it can help patients execute the series of small movements in everyday activities.

First, warm-up exercises, usually in a circle, "try to tune everyone in, to prepare the body, to awaken the body", said Manuel Firmani, a professional tango dancer leading the workshops. Some are done standing, some seated, depending on "the state people are in", he said.

“Every day is different for their bodies.”

After exercises focusing on posture, balance and other skills, dancing begins. Each patient is paired with a partner who doesn’t have Parkinson’s, often friends, relatives or volunteers.

Dance therapy is used for other medical conditions, including multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s. Débora Rabinovich, a psychologist and researcher who helped create the Argentine programme, said her research has found that "tango uses the same kind of movements that people with Parkinson’s disease tend to lose".

Liliana Garay, 59, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s two decades ago and started the programme in 2011, with no tango-dancing experience. She said it has helped her stiffness and with weakness she feels when her medication’s effect ebbs. At home, when symptoms arise, she practices an eight-step tango movement, pivoting her feet to trace "the number eight on the floor, like the infinity symbol".

When she freezes and gets stuck while bending to pick up something, she will breathe and move her leg backwards, sideways and forward, as they do in tango class. “That helps the stiffness pass, and I can walk again,” she said.

“The class is an amazing place because they don’t make you feel different,” she said. “They demand the same from us. They don’t say, ‘Oh, you have Parkinson’s, poor thing.’”

New York Times News Service