Musings of a Dance/Movement Therapist

Want to Awaken Your Residents? People with Dementia?

Just heard excitedly from Effie Marcantel of Alzheimer’s Services of the Capital Area about feedback that she got yesterday from one of the Nursing Home Activity Directors who received the Recollection Collection kit that Alz. Services provided to their area dementia programs.

The Activity Director said that the "KIT has AWAKENED her residents—even the most quiet, reserved ones!!!  Their MOST FAVORITE item in the whole kit is the Octaband!!! They call it the Octopus!

Of course, if you really want to awaken your residents, join them. Model liveliness for them.

If it's true what neuroscientists are discovering (and dance/movement therapists have been practicing for the past 6 decades), then similarly, the brains of those who have visually experienced movement spectators, if they've been interested in moving or observing movement, will display enhanced corticospinal excitability (if we had enough funding to do some serious research and test this hypothesis.)

I would love to do this research, and show the world what it means to be awake.

 

Norma Canner on Dance Therapy & Autism & Use of Props 1972

"'Norma's effect on people was magical. She was one of God's sparks of light'"

said Alan Shapiro of Newton, program director at the Community Therapeutic Day School in Lexington in The Boston Globe article of March 15, 2012, Norma Canner; helped to popularize dance therapy worldwide worldwide

"She would take very disturbed children with special needs and transform them like magic," Shapiro said. "Her ability was not that she performed. It was how she made other people express themselves by dancing. Norma could bring people out. She could transform somebody from being in their own world to joining the shared reality of everyone else in the room. If she didn’t have a musical instructor with her, she would pound on the floor to provide the rhythm.’’

I was excited to find a reprint of this article, "Stimulating Sounds and Vocalization through Body Movement and Rhythm with Hospitalized Children" by Norma Canner from a 1972 Monograph of the American Dance Therapy Association. It's a very clear look at how Norma Canner trained my cohort group in Spring 1975. Would be terrific for anyone who works with children on the autism spectrum, Asperger's, developmental disabilities. It's really how Canner taught us to work with all people, influencing my work with people with mental illness, chronic pain, physical disabilities, dementia. People are, after all, people and most respond to the kind of attentiveness she provided and taught others to provide.

Canner was instrumental in training teachers to work with children using movement in 1969, and in this article, she speaks about the use of props. Makes me realize how long some ideas take to brew (think Octaband). In speaking about instruments that Norma, staff/trainees and children all created and then used together,

"the fact that each person was playing on the same instrument as the next, accentuated the experience visually while reinforcing and activating each person's ability to express herself. I have found this to be true everywhere, no matter what the level of intellect or sophistication."

and

"We . . . talked about attaching instruments to the children's hands and feet if they were unable to hold them."

In this article, Norma tells a beautiful story of first working with the staff/trainees and 25 children in wheelchairs in an institution:

"Their disabilities were severe - from total incapacity of a crib-ridden hyrocephalic girl to one or two children who could take a few hesitant steps.... [W]e sang, hummed, took hold of hands and moved our bodies with theirs, with any part that could move. We gave shakers, bells or bones to the children who could hold them and those who could not."

Norma goes on to describe the interactions, small but exquisite, between her and the children and other staff and children, children who were not understood to be communicative.

"As the songs, sounds and movements crescendoed, the faces in the room became more and more alive. The session climaxed as though directed by a hidden force: the human need for expression."

"These children are examples of how creative movement and music transcends the labels and limitations society imposes upon the Deaf, the Retarded, the Blind and the Physically Handicapped."

This photo is of the Octaband being used by Rachel Federman Morales with a semi professional middle school dance company and children with cerebral palsy at the HMS School in Philadelphia.

Octaband Saves the Day in Working with Children with Autism

Alicia Matosich, 2012 Lesley DMT graduate, is working for GOALS for Autism, Inc. She wrote to say about a social skills group she ran: 

"I used the Octaband at work for the first time today and it was a huge hit! I had 5 boys between the ages of 10 & 14 with various levels of Autism, which has been quite the challenge. Today the Octaband saved the day. We went from strecthing and pulling all the legs to bouncing a Beanie baby in the middle. Pretty soon the boy who paces for the entire group was interacting by throwing in any object he could find in the room to bounce in the middle of the octaband (tissue boxes, erasers) haha! It was great to seem him participate! It was great to get all the clients working together; the Octaband provided just enough space for all of them while still being connected!"

And, I saw this on Twitter: "Dancemind ‏@DancemindTina Ah just found @Octaband on Twitter! Yay to this fabulous product...my participants love to be creative with it." She works with older adults.

Octaband Has a Facebook Page

 I haven't figured out a way to put the FB button on my blog, but Octaband has its own Facebook page. You can see lots of fun photos there and can post comments on how you're using it, too.

Here's one photo from Back Pocket Dancers' Octaband Dance at Dance for World Community on Saturday June 9. Click here to get there.

Dance for Social Action

Saturday's festival, sponsored and run by Jose Mateo Ballet Theatre, was a wonderful event. I wore several different hats (although they all looked like my brand new Red Sox cap purchased on the way to the Festival):

• I displayed info about dance/movement therapy and the American Dance Therapy Association. I met several people interested in knowing more about the profession, which I was glad to share.
• I exhibited the Octaband. Many wonderful people, adults and children, were introduced to and played with the Octaband for the first time. Several suggested that OT.s and PT's would love it. The people who bought it were very excited to try it out, with family, after school programs, and creative dance for 4 y.o.s among others.
• I thoroughly enjoyed dancing with Back Pocket Dancers in Bouki Dances the Kokioko plus a short improv with the Octaband, a first. Looking out into the audience, I saw friends and family looking joyously back up at us.

Several people were on their way from here to there and wondered aloud to me, "What is happening here? Why dancing?" I told them that the Jose Mateo Ballet Theatre which was housed there was sponsoring an event to raise awareness of the value of dance for social action. One man asked quizzically, "Dance for social action?" He sounded cynical. "How does dance do that?" I showed him images of me dancing with elders in wheelchairs, others dancing with children with cerebral palsy, and then gestured to the people dancing in the streets, of different ages, colors, cultures, dancing together to build community. He was impressed and agreed that it was dance for social action.

Back Pocket Dancers at Dance for World Community Festival June 9, 2012 5:40 P.M.

This Saturday, June 9, Back Pocket Dancers will be performing two pieces from our program, Dance Me a Story, plus an additional surprise piece at 5:40.

If you haven't been to Dance for World Community Festival in Cambridge, MA, you are missing out. The mission of this festival is "Using the power of dance to create social change." That would be right up my alley. The Jose Mateo Ballet Theatre is doing such a wonderful job of promoting the power of dance to build bridges within community.

I will be set up with a booth to let people know about the wonderful profession of Dance Movement Therapy and the American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA). Our next conference will be October 11 - 14, 2012 in Albuquerque, NM.

This is the Octaband being used in my workshop at the ADTA conference a few years ago.

Thankfully, my daughter will be helping me, because I'll also be exhibiting Octabands at the Festival. You can find Octaband also on Facebook. I understand if you like the page, it will help Octaband be found more easily on search engines.

This is what my husband recently said on Facebook below the photo of me sewing the first prototype of the Octaband by hand: "Who would ever know that this photo I took of my wife sewing stitch by stitch, the first Octaband in 2005 that she was bringing in to the world a tool so important and therapeutic for those with Alzheimers, dementia, autism, young adults, children and others. Her vision was and is extraordinary!" I could not have done it without the support of my husband and daughter.

Octaband Builds Community

I spent this past week-end on Retreat with my spiritual community. To be on Retreat at Camp Merrowvista in Tuftonboro NH is in itself a spiritual experience. The main topic of this year's Retreat was about being in relationship with one another in such a way as to create a strong and vibrant community which supports and encourages the creative work of each of its members.

At one point during the week-end, I pulled out the Octaband to show a fellow member. Immediately, Shayndel Kahn, a Music Together teacher, ran up and grabbed a couple of legs, saying, "This is my favorite prop in my bag." Joan Caplan, musician and social worker, ran up and grabbed yet another couple of legs: "I've seen you use this, and finally I get to feel it". Matia Angelou sauntered up more slowly, and as she held the legs, said, "I have an idea of how we could use these to help build our community." Nick, one of the camp counselors came running up as well. "What is this? Where did you get it? Do you know where I can get one? I can think of many ways we can use this to challenge the kids at camp this summer."

Three minutes, and these are the kinds of responses that were evoked spontaneously by simply taking the Octaband out of the bag.

 

Octaband donated 16-Leg Octaband to Psicoballet in Cuba, thanks to Christina Devereaux.

Octaband Helps Child with Autism Have "Best Moment of Connection".

Friend and dance/movement therapy colleague Nancy Jo Cardillo shared the following story about using the Octaband at Perkins School for the Blind with a group of children on the continuum of deaf/blindness, and with multiple handicaps. Nancy Jo was working with the children with a group of Lesley University dance movement therapy interns.

Nancy Jo was particularly enthusiastic about how the Octaband helped one child with autism who was not very social. The intern had been having difficulty finding a way to get the child to relate to her. The intern was holding 2 of the Octaband legs, and the child responded by getting inside the “lane” formed by the 2 legs. He tapped his way along the legs til he reached the middle, then tapped his way back. Picking up on this repeatable pattern, Nancy Jo had all the interns and children do the same. This enabled the child to connect with his intern and with the other children in the circle for the first time. The Octaband provided the child with the “best moment of connection”.

While this child does not have autism nor deaf-blindness, one can imagine the "lane" which the intern created for the child she was working with.

If You Can't Bring Mohammed to the Mountain, Bring the Mountain to Mohammed

I understand from googling that this is a misquote. However, since it has been used liberally in much of my life, I am reminded of this cliche.

As my cat Mo' was refusing to eat, I brought food and water to him on the bed where he was resting. It is actually getting him to take his medicine, mixed with the food, that I am most invested in. I know that if he gets his medicine, he will feel good again as he has in the past. With considerable patience and attention to his interest/disinterest as conveyed by his moving his nose toward and away from the food and water, I responded by moving the bowl closer or further away, or offering him the food on the back of the spoon. He complied, taking in a bit of his food and water and then moving away.

As we engaged in this dance of interaction, I was reminded of the similarity of dancing with a person with mid to late stage dementia. Bereft of the connections within their brain circuitry that link self to the resources for engaging in life, it is incumbent upon their caregivers to provide the sensory stimulation necessary to re-engage them. By offering them unconditional positive regard and opportunities to interact with materials that stimulate their senses - sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and the kinesthetic sense, they may take us up on our offers, and "come back to life".

As I write, Moey joins me at the typewriter, first time he has gotten out of bed today. He, like the people with dementia with whom I work, seems to let me know when I'm "on track".

Btw, this photo was taken when I placed the Octaband on the floor and wondered aloud how and where to take the Octaband next. Moey answered.

And all of this reminds me how distressed I get that this piece of misinformation (that there are 5 senses) is still taught in the schools today. How many senses do we have? The first 5 I named above tell us of the world outside of ourselves, from the touch on our skin to the more distant world we may see or hear. The kinesthetic sense tells us about the world inside us. To this point, the world still seems to largely disregard this sense, indicative of the culture-wide  lack of appreciation for the significant internal resources we all carry. I hope I see a change in my lifetime.

 

Alzheimer's Services of Baton Rouge Loves The Octaband

"People are in love with the Octaband" according to Effie Marcantel of Alzheimer's Services of the Capital Area of Baton Rouge. She used the Octaband when demonstrating recommended activities for people with dementia at a recent open house. Effie is putting together kits of sensory materials to be distributed to nursing homes and Assisted Livings in the Baton Rouge area. "The Octaband is the neatest thing in the kit. Everyone is fascinated by it."

Ed Picard has been using the Octaband at Charlie's Place Respite Center, a program at the Alzheimer's Services of the Capital Area, for several years. Ed wrote me,

"THANKS for a GREAT product.  My clients thoroughly enjoy using the Octaband during our exercise program.  It is excellent for their blood circulation and movement in their arms and legs.  Whenever I take the Octaband out for our exercise program, their faces light up with excitement.  They always tell me that it helps their blood circulation, breathing, and movement in their arms, hands, and legs."