Dancer Stays On Her Toes - Despite Disease

(CBS)  Trying to shake off a tremor, one beat at a time … this is not your typical dance class.

It is for men and women with Parkinson's Disease - a debilitating movement disorder, CBS News correspondent Kelly Wallace reports.

"With Parkinson's, everything closes in, your posture is down, so what you want to do is open up as much as possible," said Pamela Quinn.

It's an especially cruel diagnosis for the teacher, Quinn, a professional dancer, who developed symptoms at 40.

"Well, dancing is who I am!" she said.

She was used to having perfect control of her body. So she found another way to dance … through life. Literally choreographing everyday movements like walking.

"I have people pretend they're on a fashion runway because it gets their shoulders back, it gets their hips forward," she said.

She turns household chores into a spirited solo. It's the music that drives her. In fact, she doesn't leave home without her iPod. The beat pushing her, step by step.

---

Read the personal story behind this report at Couric & Co. blog.

---

"You get really rigid, and if I take the music and I pull it into me," she said.

Quinn is sharing what she calls her grab bag of tricks at a class sponsored by the Brooklyn Parkinson Group at the Mark Morris Dance Center.

Ruth Scheinfeld comes every week.

"If I didn't have here to come to, I don't know what I would do. Lay in the bed all day?" Scheinfeld said.

There's little research into how music and movement help people with Parkinson's, but a study found that Parkinson's patients who took tango lessons improved their balance more than patients who did conventional exercise.

"When I'm alone in the apartment, I turn on music and I move and I improvise and I dance around the kitchen," Quinn said.

Twelve years after her Parkinson's diagnosis, she has managed to find the beat - and herself - again.

"I'm not the person I used to be but I am," she said. "Dancing gave it back, it gives me back myself."

---

If you'd like to get in touch with Pamela Quinn, click here.

[lakelady54]

I was diagnosed with PD 4 yrs ago. It takes a lot to get moving some days. I want to take some dance lessons!!

[baptox]

My great Aunt Mae had Parkinsons and managed to be active until a few months befote her death at age 92. She made yearly trips to the beach each year and was always the hit of every family gathering or party. We all adored her as she was witty and lived with gusto.

Ms. Quinn sounds like she''s a lot like a younger version of Aunt Mae. What an inspiration!