Dance/Movement Therapy & Dementia
Channel: American Dance Therapy Association
Date: 2014-04-29

"Dance/movement therapy is primarily about forging a healing relationship where movement and dance are the media, just as words are the medium in verbal psychotherapy... We pay honor when we dance with {people with dementia], when we relate to them in an embodied way, when we attempt to understand their nonverbal communication. When we dance with them, we invite them to be in their bodies, to savor the sensations and experience of vitality, now, in their last days, while they still have bodies." 
~ Donna Newman-Bluestein


Recipient of the American Dance Therapy Association's 2013 Exceptional Service Award, Donna Newman-Bluestein, M.Ed., BC-DMT, CMA, LMHC is a board certified dance/movement therapist, certified movement analyst, licensed mental health counselor, educator, trainer, speaker, entrepreneur, and dancer. She is a senior lecturer at Lesley University and the official spokesperson for the American Dance Therapy Association.

Donna's extensive clinical experience includes dance/movement therapy (DMT) with adults with acute and chronic mental illness; adults with chronic pain, coronary artery disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in medical rehabilitation; older adults and people with dementia; and children, including those with physical disabilities. 

As founder and owner of Dance for Connection, Donna provides direct dance and dance/movement therapy services to older adults and people with mid to late stage dementia, educates the public about the importance of dance for people with dementia, and trains caregivers to improve their nonverbal communication skills with people with dementia. To enable and empower even the most withdrawn people to be lively and interactively engaged, Donna invented, manufactures and distributes the OctabandⓇ, a multi-sensory prop which motivates participants to connect with others through the colorful, stretchy fabric.

Donna has presented hundreds of workshops nationally, focusing exclusively on older adults and people with dementia in recent years. She has co-authored articles for Dementia: The International Journal of Social Research and the Journal of Dementia Care and has been awarded grants by the Salem Health and Wellness Foundation, the Alzheimer's Foundation of America, and the Marian Chace Foundation to provide training to caregivers and publish a corresponding manual: "The Dance of Interaction: An Embodied Approach to Nonverbal Communication for Caregivers of People with Dementia."

Donna's passions are twofold: First, she is passionate about transforming the culture of care for people with dementia through dance and embodied caregiving. Secondly, she wants the general public to know what a valuable modality dance/movement therapy is for anyone who suffers from a mind/body split, which is most everyone in western society. Donna blogs on such topics at www.dancetherapymusings.com.