Dance/movement therapists are trained to listen to the voice of the body, to support the creative movement spark in their clients. The clinical assessment and interventions relating to the body’s voice differ between populations and disorders. This article examines dance/movement therapy (DMT) and Alzheimer’s disease. DMT is a creative arts therapy that engages the moving body as a way to manage stress, process emotions, and cultivate health and well-being. The profession was born of an integration of modern dance and psychology within the United States in the early 20th century.    

Let’s Try Something:  

Imagine for a moment that you are beginning to lose things, struggling to find words, forgetting things—as though your memory is covered in mist. Take a moment to allow the sensation of that to come into your body. What do you notice? Is there a movement that wants to happen?  

Now reach upward with both hands on the inhale, stretch into fullness, then release your arms down on the exhale. Empty completely. Repeat.  

Imagine for a moment that you are watching a beloved one lose things, struggle to find words, forget things—their mind drifting away. Take a moment to allow the sensation of that to come into your body. What do you notice? Is there a movement that wants to happen?  

Reach wide with both hands on the inhale, widen to fullness, then wrap your arms around yourself in a hug, on the exhale. Empty completely. Repeat.   

Within the United States today, there are 6.9 million people with Alzheimer’s disease, and that number may reach almost 12 million by 2050 (Alzheimer’s Association, 2024). Because Alzheimer’s disease progresses in stages, eventually diminishing memory, learning, language and the ability to independently carry out activities of daily living, caregiving becomes a necessity, with over 80% of the help provided coming from family members, friends, or neighbors, many of whom are unpaid and may have difficulty finding support to maintain their own health.   

Even those who don’t work professionally with older adults facing Alzheimer’s disease are likely to have a friend, family member, or neighbor with the disease, since one out of every nine people over 65 has Alzheimer's.   

While researchers work toward a cure and ways to slow the onset of the disease, we also recognize the need for services that focus on improving quality of life amidst decline. Knickman and Snell (2002) argued that we must begin now to make social and public policy decisions that allow us to care for our aging population. They urged steps such as: “taking advantage of advances in medicine and behavioral health to keep the elderly as healthy and active as possible, changing the way society organizes community services so that care is more accessible, and altering the cultural view of aging to make sure all ages are integrated into the fabric of community life.”  

With the looming problem ahead of us, we must be creative. An individualized clinical approach to treatment cannot adequately address this problem. How can we best help those with dementia and the family system? How do communities create a culture of support for our elders as they age?   

Next, a Personal Story:  

During my dance/movement therapy education, I interned at a home-like facility for older adults with Alzheimer’s and other dementias, offering a person-centered approach, which meant that we honored each client’s capacity without an expectation of improvement or change. We practiced being in the present moment and facilitating quality experiences and relationships through simple activities, such as dance and singing. I would have loved for my grandmother to have had a place like this to come when she began to succumb to Alzheimer’s disease.  

Some treatment goals for people with dementia included increasing physical activity, facilitating social connectedness, supporting reminiscence, and enhancing expression. Equally important were treatment goals for caregivers such as stress management, Alzheimer’s education, and peer support.  

As a new dance therapist, I connected with each client through a greeting and smile. I led them in movement, often what they called an “exercise group,” asking them to reach and breathe similar to the experiential above. Oftentimes, due to aphasia, the loss of words, clients did not speak. So, I listened to what they said in movement. I noticed what arose in the movement, and we took that content into playful evolution as a group. We found moments of cohesion, of touch, of sound, of shared rhythm, and sometimes a word or a story would come.   

I observed firsthand how body movement is connected with both the presentation of the disease and an opportunity for intervention. Very often, as people age, their bodies lose their coordination, becoming more rigid and limited, and this restriction is often more pronounced with Alzheimer’s disease when patients sometimes experience apraxia, a diminished ability to perform moments. So, the act of connecting to the body in a warm-up, naming and awakening each part, with compassion, was an opportunity to reclaim oneself both metaphorically and physically.   

After a warm-up, we would play music and move in chairs or standing in a circle. One group member, who had lost all access to words, would take my hand and dance joyfully with me around the circle. Another group member would sing a few words of her favorite song, creating graceful movements with her arms as she sang. Still another group member at one point pushed into my hands and made a growl, after which she smiled and seemed to feel calmer. Very often emotions were expressed in the movement, even when words were not available.   

In a sense, movement itself acts as a source of reminiscence. Sometimes memories arose in our movement groups, including happy moments of life, such as weddings or parties. As music played from different decades, group members who could not speak would find the words of a song from their youth and their bodies would sway with the body memory as they sang.  

The lessons that I learned came to bear when I visited my grandmother in the hospital. She could not stand up to dance like some of my clients, but I took her hands in mine and applied lotion to them, memorizing her gnarled knuckles. I sang for her and moved our hands together. I smiled into her eyes. We were present with one another, so those memories remain dear to me today.   

Finally, an Invitation:  

For hundreds of years, movement and dance has been used and continues to be utilized across the globe for healing purposes. Dance brings communities together in mutual support, provides opportunity for emotional expression, and supports overall health through movement and creativity. Dance provides a multi-sensory experience that engages the body, mind, and emotions, making it a powerful medium for reminiscence among older adults. Through physical movement, music, social interaction, and cultural expression, dance can unlock memories, foster connections, and enrich the lives of individuals and communities. Dance can help older adults stay physically active and, with the right structure, can be modified for any body type, or psychological or physical limitation. Dance enlists the creative process, drawing people to one another socially, through witnessing or touch. Dance has the potential to cross generational divides, supporting all ages to move with one another, constructing a community fabric that engages and values all members of the community, including those with Alzheimer’s disease. Dance has the potential to meet needs for patients, caregivers, and the community, by fostering a different model for community health into the future.  

Dance/movement therapists are trained to facilitate group movement experiences that harness the inherent power of dance for collective and individual healing within the guidelines of counseling ethics. Some argue that DMT is “a useful, non-pharmacologic method for the treatment of dementia . . . that enhances quality of life, may attenuate cognitive decline and is cost-effective” (Goldstein-Levitas, 2016). Other dance movement therapists have created nonverbal communication training manuals for caregivers of people with dementia that “makes accessible to the elderly, or to any challenged population, a community of connection, compassion and relationship, when language fails” (Russel-Curry, 2018).   

Could a dance/movement therapy approach be part of an answer to the looming problem of Alzheimer’s disease?  

 Resources:  

Alzheimer’s Association. (2024) Alzheimer’s disease facts and figures. https://www.alz.org/media/Documents/alzheimers-facts-and-figures.pdf  

Goldstein-Levitas, N. (2016). Dance/movement therapy and sensory stimulation: A holistic approach to dementia care. American Journal of Dance Therapy, 38(2), 429–436.  

Knickman, J. R. & Snell, E. K. (2002). The 2030 problem: Caring for aging baby boomers. Health Services Research, 37(4), 849-884.  

Passeri, E., Elkhoury, K., Morsink, M., Broersen, K., Linder, M., Tamayol, A., Malaplate, C., Yen, F. T., & Arab-Tehrany, E. (2022). Alzheimer's disease: Treatment strategies and their limitations. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 23(22), 13954.  

Russell-Curry, P. (2018). The dance of interaction: An embodied approach to nonverbal communication training for caregivers of people with dementia. American Journal of Dance Therapy, 40, 179–182 (2018).  

Kim Rothwell, MA, NCC, BC-DMT, LCPC, LMHC, CADC, is founder and faculty at The Embodied Education Institute of Chicago, a continuing education provider for counselors and a training program for dance/movement therapists. Rothwell’s podcast, The Return to Embodiment, is a love song to the ordinary, the poetic, the implicit world of the body itself as a place of knowing and movement as our very first language. With over 15 years of experience facilitating and teaching dance/movement therapy, Rothwell draws upon all she has learned from her beloved mentors and clients, invoking the body’s wisdom and the power of creative process. Rothwell dances the Argentine tango and facilitates authentic movement for recovery from somatic countertransference. 

**Opinions and thoughts expressed in our Counseling Confab articles belong to the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or practices of NBCC and Affiliates.