Dance away the pain

Every Friday 15-20 patients bound on wheel chairs sway to the beat of rhythmic music and peppy Bollywood numbers at Indian Spinal Injuries Centre, Vasant Kunj and look forward to their next class. The age barrier dissolves in this motley crowd where the eldest patient is 58 years old and the youngest is just eight. But, the common denominator in this group is their desire to overcome their disability through dance. Archana Darshan writes more

Dancing has been therapeutic and extending this logic ahead Indian Spinal Injuries Centre began conducting dance classes as a therapy to heal patients who were suffering from paralysis of upper and lower or lower limbs alone, last year. Dr Deepti Aggarwal, head of the lifestyle management department of the Indian Spinal Injuries Centre (ISIC ) says, “Such patients need to undertake physiotherapy for life. But, many a time it has been seen that they become reluctant towards physiotherapy after a time as it turns to be boring and repetitive.”

The basic purpose of these dance classes which get conducted every week is not to supplant physiotherapy. “Rather it endeavours to complement the treatment,” informs she.

In fact, in physiotherapy the limb movements are passive and are done by the physiotherapist. On the contrary in these classes patients try to move their limbs on their own rhyming it with the beat of the music. These classes are conducted along with Shiamak Dawar’s dance troupe.

According to Aggarwal, there are two kinds of spinal injuries – paraplegia, when the lower limbs of a person are paralysed, and quadriplegia, when the upper as well as lower limbs are affected.

Hand movements for a person suffering from quadriplegia can be painful and finger movements are restricted. But they can move their shoulders and their elbows. Therefore in the first step, the patient learns to propel his wheelchair and move their bodies rhythmically.

“When there is synchronisation with music, one tends to feel less pain. Song like Kuch Kariye from Chak de is liked by the participants. Slower numbers make them easier to propel their wheelchair to music,” says Dr Aggarwal.

“Though it’s too early to comment on the response of patients to dance therapy as compared to physiotherapy, this much is clear that the therapy boosts their morale,” commented she. She shared, “Once, we had to cancel a class, participants resented it. Many times we get request to increase the number of classes which we are not able to do at the moment.”

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