Part of DWP’s strategic plan is cross-country expansion through identifying high-needs areas and training teachers where they are. Live classes are now back up and running, and Robichaud also offers annually the teacher-training program she took in New York. Because it releases dopamine, serotonin, oxycontin, endorphins - all the happy hormones. Either way, the combination of the music and movement brings on feelings of physical and mental connection that are better experienced than described. You can take turns on who leads or you can try it on your own. If with a partner, choose who will lead and then follow their movements. Music is another key factor in helping movement and dance find different pathways to activate movement centres by engaging auditory pathways to the brain. Start by putting on some favourite music. It is beneficial because we use our brains differently when we mirror actions. If online classes are not an option, m irroring is a technique that can be tried at home on your own in front of a mirror, or facing a partner, friend or caregiver. She hopes one day to train with Sarah to become a DWP instructor. Kalia immediately offered to volunteer for DWP. Kalia focuses on developing novel therapies since, as she points out, “there is no magic pill that will stop Parkinson’s progress: it’s a lifelong diagnosis … current therapies only alleviate symptoms.”Īs a neurology resident in 2008, Kalia came across a DWP pamphlet and Robichaud invited her to take a class. Dopaminergic pathways in the human brain are intrinsic to both physiological and behavioural processes including movement, cognition, executive functions, reward, motivation and neuroendocrine control. Now an associate professor at the University of Toronto, a senior scientist at the University Health Network’s Krembil Research Institute and a movement disorders neurologist at Toronto Western Hospital, her research focuses on understanding the key molecular pathways responsible for neurodegeneration in Parkinson’s.Ī key factor of Parkinson’s is the dying off of dopamine-producing neurons in the brain. Dancing was - and still is - very close to her heart, and she was looking for a way to give back to the community that had given her “everything … it’s made me who I am.”Ī neurologist specializing in Parkinson’s, Kalia also enjoyed a brief professional dance career before pursuing her academic training. “I told him I knew nothing … but I also said I would do all the necessary research in order to improve his functional fitness… and hopefully his everyday life.”Īfter training with the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow and having a professional dance career, Robichaud became a personal trainer. “I felt foolish,” she said recently, prior to teaching one of the free, in-studio classes she offers through her charitable organization, Dancing with Parkinson’s (DWP). The only thing she knew at the time was that both Michael J. When dancer and personal trainer Sarah Robichaud had her first consultation with former CBC Radio host Andy Barrie in 2008, he was quick to get to the point: “What do you know about Parkinson’s?” It was just one year before that Barrie had revealed to his listeners that he had been diagnosed with early-stage Parkinson’s disease.
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