Dance Argentine Tango to improve mental health

Tango is one of our passions in life. It has come to the attention of mental health professionals all over the world, and is now being used to help in the treatment of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, as well as to assist in Couples Counselling.

The following excerpt from an article by Luis Andres Henao was recently published on Reuters ...

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 31 (Reuters Life!) - On the fourth floor of Buenos Aires' largest psychiatric hospital, patients dance the tango with doctors and nurses.

A few months ago some were too shy to talk and others could barely keep their balance when they walked. Today, they embrace their partners cheek-to-cheek, gliding and pausing across the floor to the mournful chords of a traditional accordion.

Doctors as far afield as Italy and Australia are using Argentina's world famous tango to treat problems ranging from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease to phobias and marital breakdowns.

"Treatment is not just about therapy and drugs, it's about giving them a nice time to enjoy themselves," said Trinidad Cocha, a psychologist who teaches a weekly tango therapy class at the Borda Hospital in Buenos Aires.

"They relax and all the labels disappear. We're not doctors, nurses, musicians or patients. We're just tango dancers," she said as couples danced across the hospital's makeshift dancehall.


TIGHT EMBRACE

Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine found the when patients with Parkinson's took tango lessons their balance improved.

Its intricate steps helped to improve the memory of Alzheimer's patients in Britain. In Italy the trust needed for the tango's tight embrace and its backward walk are used in couple's counseling.

"With tango, you have the advantage of having many different styles of dancing to fit each specific patient," said Martin Sotelano, chairman of the Wales-based International Association of Tango Therapy.

"You focus on the embrace and the communication for couples counseling; the eight basic steps of tango for Alzheimer's; and the tango walk, that requires so much grace and rigidity, can help a patient with Parkinson's."

Read the full article here... Reuters ...

Argentine Tango in Port Macquarie

Baby Pelicans

As we sat watching some pelican's in the river at Port Macquarie last night, my mum asked, "Why don't you ever see baby pelicans? You see ducks with their babies, and all sorts of animals with their babies, but I've never seen a baby pelican."

Well that made us all stop and think, I know-I know the cogs are a bit rusty - and none of us had ever seen a baby pelican either, so of course this morning I Googled the answer, which I found at Sea Bird Rescue

Photography fun site...

Just stumbled across a really interesting website on photography...

I've been playing there for ages, click on one of the photos... then click outside the photo to move around the page...

Matthew Mahon

Argentine Tango Link

"It takes an athlete to dance, but an artist to be a dancer"

Here's a lovely Argentine Tango link of Natacha Poberaj & Jesús Velazquez on UTube that a friend just emailed us... click here

maybe if I keep practising...

Contemporary Frangipani

Did you know that if you take a picture of a frangipani such as the one below... then open accessories, then open paint, then open your picture, then save it as a 16 color bitmap, that you end up with a frangipani that looks like this one above?



That's what I learned when learning about favicons... the things that you come across while learning through Google!

Looking in a new way...

Today I have a challenge for you, I want you to focus on good things that are happening all around you, and write them down. Little things such as... my husband made me a cup of tea and brought it into bed for me. Or... the rain makes these little drops on the bamboo in the pot in my garden, and if I look closely, then I can see our house reflected in the water.

What water dragon?

What water dragon?

Yesterday I started a photography course. Gee it was fun, yesterday's class started on the fundamentals of looking after your camera, and information on apertures and lenses and tripods. But then at the end of the class we went walking in the bush, and started to get down to the good stuff... taking pictures.

"Here you are, take one of the water dragon" Russell said... 'what water dragon?" I thought, as much as I looked I couldn't see it. In the end I had to ask him to point it out to me. And sure enough there it was at the end of an old log. It made me realise that our photography class is going to be so much more than learning about photography, in addition to all the new technical info, I can already see that it's about learning to look in a new way.



Russell's Garden Above... forget the stair master walk up and down here a few times a day!