In April, Debra Chew was visiting her 80-year-old mother, Jacqueline Castro, at an assisted living facility outside Cleveland. As she sat with her mom, who has vascular dementia, an aide popped her head in the room to notify Castro that a tap dancing class was about to begin. Chew recalls thinking, “Tap dancing? My mom has dementia and two knees that are bone on bone, and she's tap dancing?”

But when Chew accompanied her mother into a spacious, light-filled room at the senior living facility located near Lake Erie, she saw something extraordinary. There, a dance class was about to begin—led by an energetic former professional dancer named Melissa Renner.

It wasn't what Chew expected.

“They put these little rubber boots over their shoes and started dancing in their chairs to some great Frank Sinatra music,” says Chew. “People were doing circles with their feet for cha-cha, going two steps forward, two steps back. Everybody in that class, including my mom, had big smiles on their faces. I was thinking, ‘Oh my gosh! This was people uniting with their souls. This was freedom.’”

This was Tap Time, a seated dance class for older adults with neurologic diseases. Renner created the program, which she leads at 14 assisted living facilities and memory care centers in northeast Ohio.

The class melds two of Renner's longtime passions. “I started dancing before I even started walking,” the 36-year-old says. As a youngster, she studied and performed jazz, ballet, and tap. Later she taught ballroom and Latin dancing. Renner has performed with the Cleveland Dance Project, a 160-member semiprofessional ensemble. She also has a degree in exercise science.

But she has a parallel passion: helping older adults with dementia. It is motivated in part by personal experience: Renner's grandmother died in 2011 at age 87, after living with Alzheimer's for five years. “Seeing my grandmother decline and lose her mobility was awful,” says Renner.

In 2017, Renner was invited to teach a ballroom dancing class at an assisted living facility. She planned to demonstrate basic waltz and tango moves but found that most of the 20 participants couldn't master the steps and could barely stand for the 60-minute class. “They didn't have the balance, strength, or mobility,” she says.

How could she bring the benefits of dance to people who were no longer able to stand on their own? “I sat in a dining room chair and started doing cha-cha and mambo steps with my feet,” she says. She introduced the seated dancing to residents at the center, and it was a hit. Renner soon began teaching her Seated Rhythm class to residents with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease at other local facilities. In the process, she observed something that led to a new idea.

“I noticed that when the participants clapped their hands and became part of the beat of the music, they really came to life,” she explains. “I thought, ‘That reminds me of tap dancing.’ I realized that tap dancing would be so good for them.”

But she also knew that tap shoes could be uncomfortably narrow or stiff. “Trying to squeeze their feet into tap shoes would have stressed them out,” she says. “I thought, ‘What about a cover?’” She developed a silicone rubber covering that can stretch over any shoe, even a rehab boot. It has taps under the toes and heel and a zipper on top. (A patent is pending.)

During the 45-minute class, Renner plays a swing music mix she put together, and the participants follow along with her steps. Renner also leads them in stretches and simple exercises, such as alternating leg lifts.

“Melissa's class brings out the best in the residents,” says Holly Soresso, director of community development at the Cardinal Court Assisted Living & Memory Care center in Strongsville, OH. “They're clapping and tapping, they're stretching their ankles and feet, which means when they get up, they'll be steadier on their feet.”

Dance can offer various benefits for those with neurologic conditions, says Joe Verghese, MD, FAAN, professor of neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. “Dancing involves not only physical activity but also a lot of mental effort,” he says. “You have to learn new steps and adapt them to music.”

In general, people also are more likely to stick with dancing—seated or standing—than with most other forms of physical activity, says Dr. Verghese. “The dropout rate of exercise programs is very high,” he says, citing numerous studies over the years that have shown that about half the people who start an exercise program will quit within six months. By comparison, a study of seniors by Dr. Verghese, which is currently under review for publication, suggests that the dropout rate for dance may be as low as 20 percent.

A few other small studies have found higher adherence rates for dance than for traditional exercise programs. Why? “Because it's enjoyable,” says Dr. Verghese. It's also social. “In other contexts, research has shown that people who have more socialization may have greater protection against dementia,” he says.

Above all, Soresso says, in Renner's classes “they're having fun.” Lots of it. As Delphya Yvonne Gagliardi, 78, a retired middle-school principal who was diagnosed with dementia eight years ago, says, “I'm going to tell you the truth. When I'm done, it's like, ‘Okay, when can we do this again?’”

Learn More

For more information about Melissa Renner's Tap Time and other classes, including virtual sessions, instructor training, and a soon-to-be-released video version, visit activeforlifefitness.com.