A correct body posture is made possible by a complex interplay of sensory information and motor responses. For blind and visually impaired individuals, these balance mechanisms can become disturbed, leading to challenges in daily life. This is also the case in sports, especially in dance sports.
For this exercise, we will individually explore the extent to which your lack of sight creates obstacles in maintaining balance and what the potential solution could be.
When? December 3, 3:00 PM
Where? Port Arthurlaan 33, 9000 Ghent
General info:
Our balance system ensures that we stand firmly on our feet. The balance center in our brain receives information from three sources:
the eyes: telling us where we are in the environment
the muscles and joints: the tension in our muscles and joints tells us how our body is moving or what position we are in
the balance organ in the left and right inner ear: senses the movement of our head and its position relative to gravity
The brain processes this information and ensures that our gaze remains stable with compensating eye movements. When the balance system has to function with one less, it is naturally understood that people with a visual impairment face immense challenges in learning, maintaining, and acquiring proper balance in their movement. Visually impaired people often use compensatory techniques to better perceive their surroundings. They adjust their body posture to make better use of their remaining senses and tactile perceptions. This can lead to changes in how they stand, sit, or walk, as well as changes in muscle tension and joint strain. These adjustments can provide temporary benefits, such as better perception of the environment, but in the long term, they may result in unfavorable postural patterns and excessive muscle strain. Over time, this can lead to various issues in the back, neck, shoulders, and even arms and legs. Dance is the ideal sport to address this. Body stability is one of the prescribed aesthetic rules in sports such as gymnastics, rope skipping, and especially dance.
A research team from the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases conducted a study on the effects of dancing and exercising on balance skills and hippocampal plasticity in healthy seniors.
"Age-related degenerations in brain structure are associated with balance disturbances and cognitive impairment. However, neuroplasticity is known to be preserved throughout lifespan and physical training studies with seniors could reveal volume increases in the hippocampus (HC), a region crucial for memory consolidation, learning, and navigation in space, which were related to improvements in aerobic fitness. Moreover, a positive correlation between left HC volume and balance performance was observed. Dancing seems a promising intervention for both improving balance and brain structure in the elderly. It combines aerobic fitness, sensorimotor skills, and cognitive demands while at the same time the risk of injuries is low. Hence, the present investigation compared the effects of an 18-month dancing intervention and traditional health fitness training on volumes of hippocampal subfields and balance abilities. Before and after intervention, balance was evaluated using the Sensory Organization Test and HC volumes were derived from magnetic resonance images (3T, MP-RAGE). Fourteen members of the dance (67.21 ± 3.78 years, seven females), and 12 members of the fitness group (68.67 ± 2.57 years, five females) completed the whole study. Both groups revealed hippocampal volume increases mainly in the left HC (CA1, CA2, subiculum). The dancers showed additional increases in the left dentate gyrus and the right subiculum. Moreover, only the dancers achieved a significant increase in the balance composite score. Hence, dancing constitutes a promising candidate in counteracting the age-related decline in physical and mental abilities." This describes how dance and fitness benefit the maintenance of balance and stability in everyday activities for seniors. Anecdote: Recently, my mother traveled to the south of France. My mother is 73 and loves to travel. She booked a trip to the south of France and northern Spain, totaling 20 days. However, her trip turned into a nightmare when she fell on the first day, hit her head against a concrete step, and had the outside of her eyebrow stitched. She had immense fear because her lens, which had been inserted due to cataracts, had shifted. A tooth broke in half and had to be removed and can't be restored due to lack of bone. Her hands and fingers were bruised for weeks. She lost consciousness. Fortunately, that was all. But still...
What if you're visually impaired or blind? Isn't this challenge even greater?
The research showed that after 18 months of dancing, there was a much greater awareness of balance in these retired individuals than before they started dancing.
In the lessons, I process new information about balance and stability in blind and visually impaired people every day. The most common issue is the position of the head relative to the body. Often, the head is tilted too far forward. It makes me think of birds, like pigeons, who extend their heads far forward and then return. I can imagine that if you've been walking with your head bent forward like this for years, it must have immense consequences for the neck and back. Therefore, it seems essential that the factor of "balance and stability" is incorporated into every dance program for the blind and visually impaired.
In a new protocol, it seems essential that a large part of the dance involves creating a better body posture. For this, I believe two things are very important:
Body awareness of the visually impaired or blind through self-examination, gathering information, testing, and maintaining a good posture.
Creating body awareness through the trainer and instructor. For the latter, we as trainers must gain knowledge in this area and conduct research on the impact of balance disorders due to the loss of visual input. In addition, science must focus on research in this area, such as making it the subject of student theses, research, etc. And because we have to start somewhere, we invite everyone with a visual impairment to think along and search for solutions to these very significant daily problems.
Everyone is warmly welcome to explore this and experience it firsthand. #danceisblind #koningboudewijnstichting Koning Boudewijnstichting #dance #love #life #stadgent #sportvlaanderen #gsportvlaanderen
@koningboudewijnstichting
Video 1: Madina and Manuel perform a balance exercise where they stand on one leg while Michèle counts.
Video 2: Madina thinks Manuel is dancing too fast. We find it funny.