So You Want to Dance – A New Way to Help CRPS

Lucrecia teaches dance as a form of physical theraphy for CRPS/RSD painBy Ryan Ferrell for the RSDSA website.

Do you sometimes struggle to get Enrique out of your head?

Yo quiero estar contigo, vivir contigo

Bailar contigo, tener contigo

So does Lucrecia Martinez, a physical therapist from the Silicon Valley. She wrote about wrestling with her chronic pain after an injury in last summer’s Community Update (page six):

Until then, my passion in life had been dancing. My husband and I met dancing. We loved to escape on date nights to dance salsa, cumbia, merengue, and any other Latin-infused music.

At first, I denied that pain could rob me of my passion. I would grit and push myself through the pain. I feared that, if my husband and I could no longer dance, he would feel sad. All of this dancing in denial, however, would cause are-ups that lasted for days.

Some years later, while working with my patients, I realized that neither dance nor pain needed to dictate my life, that my life was mine alone. I taught patients how to modify and pace their activities, helping them to manage pain, regain function, and reach personal goals. Why not do the same for myself? Why not modify dance?

Lucrecia’s article on modified dancing a great read, complete with a playlist of songs whose rhythms are easy to adapt to new moves, no matter one’s physical limitations. Even better, she has now released videos on YouTube!

So if you’ve wanted to dance, but needed new moves… open YouTube, make some room, and start to groove.

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