Dance therapy workshops will be offered, from September, at Dreux hospital, for patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
Move to stimulate a body that escapes us. Not for the sake of performance but with kindness: this is the ambition of the dance therapy workshops which will begin in September at the Dreux hospital, on Wednesday mornings, for patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease: “It’s is the disease of movement and paradoxically, we make them dance”, underlines Doctor Olivier Tengoua, head of the neurology department, at the origin of the project.
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Accessible to all patients
The launch session of the workshop, entitled “Move your Park-in-song”, took place in April, on the occasion of World Parkinson’s Day:
“We have only had good feedback. Those who suffer from this illness tend to forget themselves, to withdraw. They had the feeling of finding themselves again.”
Doctor Olivier Temgoua (Head of neurology department, Parkinson specialty at Dreux hospital)
Dance therapy, proposed by Sadia Montavon, is divided into three parts: the realization of broad movements based on rhythm and dance, the re-education of breathing through singing to combat hypophonia, the weakening of the voice over time. of the day, one of the symptoms of the disease. Then, to finish, a relaxation session:
“The session lasts an hour, interspersed with two breaks. Everyone can go at their own pace. The course is accessible to patients at all stages. Patients can be seated and participate with their arms, others on their cane. But the The benefits are there, both at the motor level and at the emotional level.”
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No need, either, to be treated at the Dreux hospital to participate, dance therapy is open to all patients.
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A complex disease
This project by Doctor Temgoua was born from an observation: to treat this complex neurodegenerative disease, treatments are not enough:
“The symptoms are tremors, slowness, stiffness. Each patient has a form that predominates over the others, others start with symptoms that have nothing to do with each other.”
Doctor Olivier Temgoua (empty)
Parkinson’s disease is characterized by three phases: the “honeymoon” phase, when everything goes well once the patient takes their treatments; the fluctuation phase where despite treatments, the response is not optimal; the decline phase where there can also be cognitive disorders: “The evolution of the disease can take place over 35 years”, specifies Olivier Temgoua, whose youngest patient is 39 years old. “Patients must continue to live as normally as possible and this does not just happen through medication.”
200,000 : The number of Parkinson’s patients in France. It is the 2nd neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s.
Getting around the medical desert
The head of neurology, who arrived at the Dreux hospital in 2010, is also looking for solutions to circumvent the medical desert which affects, as elsewhere, Parkinson’s patients: “The delays in obtaining an appointment with the speech therapist are long. “a year in community medicine,” laments the practitioner.
For two years, he has set up multidisciplinary care at the Dreux hospital, with a physiotherapist, two speech therapists, two nurses and five neurologists: “We are mobilizing the forces already at the hospital to try to circumvent waiting times,” explains Dr. Temgoua, even if he recognizes that this does not entirely solve the problem:
“There is a four, five month wait to have a neurological consultation. The time shortens to one month when it comes to making a first diagnosis, after recommendations from a general practitioner who will direct us to save time “.
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The only practitioner in Eure-et-Loir for second-line treatments
He treats nearly 700 patients per year, and has the distinction of being the only practitioner in Eure-et-Loir to take care of second-line treatments (fluctuation phase) after surgical intervention:
“I send patients to the expert Parkinson center at Rouen University Hospital for deep brain stimulation* and I take care of the rest of the treatment”;
Doctor Olivier Temgoua (Head of the neurology department, Parkinson specialty at Dreux hospital.)
But be careful, here too, operation times can be long: ‘I have one of my patients who has been waiting for 9 months.’
Electrical impulses that help control the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.Dance therapy
. To register, you must contact the neurology secretariat of Dreux hospital: 02.37.51.53.25, between 8 and 4:45 p.m., Monday to Friday. Free.
