BENEFITS OF COMMUNITY DANCE PROGRAM ON FUNCTIONAL MOBILITY AND PARTICIPATION IN CHILDREN WITH NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS

Purpose/Hypothesis: Balanced Families (BF) is a community dance program to supplement physical therapy (PT) intervention for children with neuromuscular disorders. The purpose of this study was to assess benefits to participants over multiple sessions.

Number of Subjects: Fifteen children with neuromuscular disorders (9 female, 6 male; age 5-17 years) participated over 6 semesters. Five participants were excluded due to limited or incomplete data.

Materials/Methods: A therapeutic ballet-based intervention was provided weekly for 60 minutes over 10 week sessions 3 times per year. Each participant completed a pre and post session assessment including Gross Motor Functional Measure (GMFM), Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM), and Sensory Organization Test (SOT).

Results: Seven participants maintained or improved their GMFM scores and performance ratings on the COPM goals. All had significant improvements in goal satisfaction in COPM. Improved postural control was observed on the 2 participants who could complete the SOT assessment.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that participation in this community program was beneficial for participants to improve or maintain functional mobility. Variability in performance correlated to unrelated health complications or difficulty with testing. During breaks between sessions, participants either demonstrate a decline or maintenance in assessment scores suggesting that BF provided an important opportunity to maintain or improve functional skills.

Clinical Relevance: BF provided participants a fun and interactive community program to help maintain or improve their functional outcomes. Community programs can provide important maintenance therapy potentially optimizing functional mobility.