Tango Plus, Danslessen voor mensen van 55 jaar en ouder.

Never too Old to Tango, een onderzoek van de McGill University in Canada.

Tzigane
When McGill physical and occupational therapy professor Patricia McKinley took up tango, she began musing about the benefits the sultry Argentine dance might provide for the senior citizens she worked with as a researcher - individuals who were especially vulnerable to debilitating tumbles. A nasty spill can have devastating consequences for the elderly, notes McKinley. Forty percent of hospital admissions for seniors are the result of fall-related injuries.

As McKinley honed her skills on the dance floor, she quickly realized the tango offered excellent training for improving balance. A hypothesis formed in her mind and she recruited 30 research subjects, ranging in age from 62 to 90, to put it to the test. The participants, all of whom had experienced an unsettling fall during the previous year, were split up into two groups. Half took up the tango, the other half joined a walking group.

The regular exercise benefited both groups, but the results for the dancers were particularly noteworthy. Not only did the tango novices demonstrate marked improvement in balance, coordination and posture, they also did well in multitasking quizzes that pointed to some impressive cognitive gains.

Tango isn't just a physical workout, says McKinley, it exercises the brain as well.

"It's not like line dancing. There is a huge element of cognition involved in tango." The steps are complicated and dancers have to improvise on the fly - if only to avoid other dancers whirling nearby. Tango has another essential characteristic in McKinley's estimation. It's fun.

"Over the course of the study, you could see that [the tango dancers] were really getting into it and enjoying themselves," says McKinley, adding that the more appealing a physical activity is, the greater the chance that people will keep it up. One 78-year-old participant was so enthralled by tango's charms, she promptly booked a trip to Argentina to carry on her studies.

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