![\"Cristina](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Semenza_240313a025-300x200.jpg\")
\u201cPeople are living longer with Parkinson\u2019s disease, sometimes up to 20 years. It doesn\u2019t alter your life expectancy, but it can influence your quality of life,\u201d Col\u00f3n-Semenza, an assistant professor in UConn\u2019s Department of Kinesiology<\/a>, says.<\/p>\n In 2020, Col\u00f3n-Semenza says she was in a virtual meeting for early career faculty, when she wrote in the chat that she was interested in collaborating on a to-be-determined project with researchers from outside the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources<\/a>.<\/p>\n Clare Benson, then an assistant professor of photography, and Charlotte Gray, then an assistant professor-in-residence and director of the Alexey von Schlippe Gallery<\/a> at UConn Avery Point<\/a>, responded that they, too, would like to stretch their work out of the Department of Art and Art History<\/a> and School of Fine Arts<\/a>.<\/p>\n Over the next year, the trio developed their project, \u201cMovement, Creativity, and Community: Improving Gait and Quality of Life in People with Parkinson Disease through Photography and Collective Experience,\u201d<\/a> and secured funding in 2021 through a School of Fine Arts STEAM Innovation Grant<\/a> from the Office of the Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship<\/a> that allowed them to get to work.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always been interested in the field of medicine, and as an artist I once even thought about medical illustration as a career. Even though I never expected to be involved with a project like this, it wasn\u2019t entirely a surprise,\u201d Benson says. \u201cI\u2019ve collaborated with scientists before in different contexts because I\u2019m interested in exploring ways that visual images can become part of scientific conversation or learning.\u201d<\/p>\n Col\u00f3n-Semenza, Benson, and Gray turned one of the physical therapy rooms in the Horsebarn Hill Sciences Complex into a photography studio: blacking out windows, setting up lights and filtering screens, hanging a dark backdrop across the wall, and gearing up with camera, computer, and monitor.<\/p>\n Eleven volunteer participants visited twice a week over eight weeks for physical therapy sessions during which they were instructed to paint broad strokes with their body while donning any combination of light-up accoutrements, things like lighted wrist and ankle bands, clip-on fingertips, a fluorescent safety vest, glow sticks, and flashlights, whatever they wanted.<\/p>\n Then, the overhead lights went out, the camera\u2019s shutter speed was set to a long exposure, and participants got the nod to walk, overexaggerated, in front of the backdrop as if it were a background stage curtain.<\/p>\n The result was images of the lights in motion however participants decided to move their bodies, whether zig zag, straight, loop de loop, half-moon, over the head, heart shape, butterfly shape, or cursive scrawl. Reflective patches on sneakers and athletic wear, along with bright-colored clothing, added to each picture\u2019s dramatic effect.<\/p>\n The control group of five engaged in traditional gait training, but then looked at landscape images on the monitor at the same rate the test group looked at the images that had just been created. The six in the test group went home with printouts of their best piece of art.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were times when the image didn\u2019t really work or it was too dark, and I\u2019d say, \u2018OK, let me change the camera settings, but let\u2019s try that again.\u2019 And we\u2019d do it again. Sometimes, even, they would go across, see the image, and then be inspired to do something different the next time,\u201d Benson says. \u201cIt was really nice to see that they got excited enough to want to start trying new things to manipulate the image.\u201d<\/p>\n Col\u00f3n-Semenza says the typical gait pattern for someone with Parkinson\u2019s is slow, short, shuffling steps. Using things like a metronome or music can train a person to move their body faster and more fluidly, she says. Even activities such as dance, boxing, bike riding, and ping-pong can benefit a person with the disease.<\/p>\n But oftentimes, the best way to improve a person\u2019s walking ability is simply to walk, something that can be boring in a medical setting when done in circles around a room or up and down a hallway. This project was meant to get participants to use the best practice of high doses of repetitive activity but make it more engaging and motivating.<\/p>\n They also had agency over the result, in the way they moved and what light-up mechanisms they employed. That was important, Col\u00f3n-Semenza says, and dovetails with what physical therapists call the OPTIMAL theory of motor learning \u2013 the more say a person has in practicing a motor skill, the better it sticks.<\/p>\n \u201cGait speed is thought to be the sixth vital sign, like the way blood pressure is a measurement of your health,\u201d Col\u00f3n-Semenza says of the importance of walking. \u201cIf your gait speed is less than 1 meter per second, the likelihood of being hospitalized or having to go into a nursing home is increased. We, as physical therapists, can intervene and help someone avoid that for as a long as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Graduate student Paria Darbandsari \u201924 MS worked with Col\u00f3n-Semenza to determine that participants in the study, albeit only a pilot study, improved their walking speed, endurance, and quality of life. Parkinson\u2019s not only affects a person\u2019s motor skills, but also causes depression as a symptom of the disease.<\/p>\n \u201cNot enough people know that even though this is a progressive neurological disease there is something that can be done to help you manage it, live your life with it, maintain a high quality of life, and find some level of joy, happiness, engagement in spite of it,\u201d Col\u00f3n-Semenza says.<\/p>\n Gray, an art historian, says one of the first photographs of a person living with Parkinson\u2019s, identified as \u201cPierre D.,\u201d was published in 1879. Early photography required that a person remain still for a length of time to accommodate a long shutter speed, which meant any movement that Pierre D. made was captured on film.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the 19th century, Parkinson\u2019s disease was sometimes called the \u2018shaking disease,\u2019 so its documentation using early photographic methods emphasized the difficulties of the person living with the disease,\u201d she explains. \u201cIt was kind of like an added layer of stigmatization.\u201d<\/p>\n Flipping that, the UConn study wanted participants to move and do so as much as possible, and one of Gray\u2019s contributions was putting the resulting images on display for all to see.<\/p>\n![\"Those](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/On_The_Move_20-300x200.jpg\")