Parkinson's disease (PD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disease which presents a
range of symptoms that can be classified as motor and non-motor. Apathy is a
neuropsychiatric disorder that has main characteristic loss of motivation, with high
prevalence among patients with PD. Dance is one of the practices that has been gaining
growing space in Brazil as a preventive strategy of sedentarism, to delay senility and
promote quality of life among the elderly. The present study was developed to
investigate the potential of dance in reducing the presentation of apathy in patients with
PD. Patients with PD diagnosis and under pharmacological scheme participated
regularly in weekly dance classes, two classes per week with duration of 1 hour per
session, under a protocol developed specifically for the work of the specific needs of the
patient with Parkinson's. We used the Apathy Scale protocol to evaluate patients when
they joined the program, followed by retest after six months of intervention. Qualitative
analyses of the patients' own testimonials, as well as the caregivers and volunteer
students of the project revealed a subjective perception of improvement in the
motivational, quality of life and motor aspects of these patients. Quantitative analyses of
the scores obtained in the apathy test revealed a significant difference in the averages of
the group between the analyses performed before (19.77 ± 2.88) and after (12.44 ± 1.82)
the six-month period of dance classes. The reduction in the apathy score between the
periods was 37.52%. Due to its pleasant features and stimulation of several neural
systems, dance can contribute significantly to the improvement of well-being and to the
reduction of the rate of symptomatic progression of PD patients.
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