Name:Jasmine, Mosavi

School/Affiliation:York University

Co-Authors:Carolina Bearss, Stephan Bonfield, Joseph FX DeSouza

Virtual or In-person:Virtual

Abstract:

There is growing literature finding an association between non-motor symptoms of people with Parkinson’s disease (PwPD) and depressive and anxiety symptoms (MDD; Ehrt et al., 2006). The objective of this paper is to investigate research from Desouza et al. (2021) 3-year longitudinal study and confirm the current hypothesis of whether PwPD can positively mitigate non-motor Parkinson’s Disease (PD) through dance class interventions and that non-motor symptoms of PD are correlated to symptoms of depression (manic depressive disorder) and anxiety (GAD and SAD). The methods included using the PANAS-X scale divided into 4 separate scales to fit the DSM-V diagnostic criteria of depressive and anxiety through both positive (counter-acting emotions) and negative symptoms (D-Neg, D-Pos, A-Neg, A-Pos). The hypothesis was tested through repeated measures ANOVA in a pre-test post-test design, where 12 PwPD and 7 healthy controls (HC) group (N = 18) completed one 60-minute dance class and had the PANAS-X derived scales completed before and after class. The results of this study indicate that PwPD participants reported their non-motor symptoms highly associating with negative symptoms of manic depression disorder (D-Neg scale), and the counteracting positive symptoms of anxiety (A-Pos scale) having the largest decreasing effect after the dance intervention. Future direction for the current research is promising as there were limitations of this research including PwPD usage of pharmacotherapy and the lack of a concrete multiple session dance program to further explore the results of dance interventions on non-motor symptoms of PD relating to depressive and anxiety disorders.