SParky samba

Working with people with Parkinson’s to understand how taking part in Samba drumming group may help the symptoms of Parkinson’s.

Parkinson’s (PD) affects areas of the brain that are important for regulating many vital functions including movement, thinking, mood, sleep and pain. Symptoms progress over time, reducing independence, wellbeing and quality of life.  Treatments are available that reduce some symptoms, but no proven treatment is able to slow or stop the decline. Treatments include medication and surgery, or lifestyle changes, commonly known as non-drug interventions. People with PD have highlighted the need for more interventions to help combat the movement problems and other symptoms they experience.

Interventions that include physical activity (exercise, physiotherapy, dancing) or repetitive beats to music, known as rhythmic auditory stimulation, have been shown to help with PD symptoms, largely delivered and tested in the clinic. We know that community-based interventions can have positive health benefits. It has been suggested that providing interventions in the community, rather than in clinical settings, will help people with PD stay engaged with the intervention to achieve maximum and sustainable potential health benefit.

We are working with a group that has developed a new community-based samba percussion activity (SParky Samba) designed for people with PD by people with PD with the support of a samba band leader. An initial qualitative evaluation has shown that the people with PD attending SParky Samba feel a number of benefits in their movement, health and wellbeing from participating in the group. We would like to perform a clinical evaluation of SParky Samba to see if it has potential to help improve health outcomes and wellbeing in people with PD.

The first step will be to understand, through a series of observations and interviews, what the key parts of SParky Samba are. We will use this information to define SParky Samba as an intervention so that it can be delivered to new groups of people with PD.

Secondly, we will undertake a feasibility trial of the SParky Samba intervention in people with early to mid-stage PD. This will involve the set-up of three new community SParky Samba groups in Wales. We will recruit 60 participants for whom a computer programme will decide at random whether they should either attend a SParky Samba group or a coffee morning for 12 weeks. We will measure movement, thinking and wellbeing at the beginning and end of the 12 weeks. We will also record how many people are willing to join and then stay in the trial. This will provide important information that will help us design a bigger and fully robust clinical trial to see if the SParky Samba intervention benefits the health and wellbeing of people with PD.