PARTE™

The Parkinson's Exercise & Wellness Center now offers Parkinson's—Art of Expression (PARTE™) classes, which utilize the techniques of theatre to target the motor and nonmotor skills affected by Parkinson’s Disease.

A 2017 study conducted by Giovanni Mirabella et. al found that a theatre-inspired therapy program could be beneficial to people with PD. PARTE™ was created by Stephanie Goodman (COTA) in 2019 and has grown to a fully fledged program thanks to a generous Community Grant from the Parkinson's Foundation.

PARTE™ accesses the creative centers of the brain, rewires neuropathways, decreases anxiety, encourages socialization, improves mood and self-confidence, and promotes greater mobility and body control. Read more at jointheparte.com.

Watch the video below to learn more about PARTE

"Recently, we have shown that active theatre, in which patients are directly involved in the representations, is a valid add-on therapeutic intervention for PD. Compared to patients undergoing physiotherapy, only PD patients performing theatre had progressive improvements in most nonmotor clinical scales (especially those tapping into the affective domains) and, to a lesser extent, in those assessing motor symptoms. In particular, patients performing theatre showed remarkable improvements in their level of depression, in their self-esteem, and in the quality of sleep."

— 2017 Study Findings from Giovanni Mirabella

“This is really good for making quick decisions and interacting and looking people in the eye which is something you stop doing as the disease progresses. You get smaller. And this class, PARTE, makes you bigger.”