In the Press...
Boston Globe Interview
By Karen Campbell
August 5, 2013
The Boston Globe interviews Donna Newman-Bluestein about her work as a dance therapist...
social Work today
By Kate Jackson
February 2014
Donna speaks to Social Work Today about Expressive Therapies for People with Alzheimer's and Dementia...
Boston Globe - Is art therapy the answer for dementia?
By Karen Weintraub
November 27, 2012
Dance therapist Donna Newman-Bluestein said one vehicle for a life worth living is dance. As long as people have bodies, they are capable of — and should be given an opportunity for — moving and dancing, she told the attendees at last month’s conference.
People with dementia often lack the initiative to begin movement on their own, so they sit, immobile for hours, Newman-Bluestein said. “If someone else gets them going, they can engage, and they can move a lot more.
FIFTY PLUS ADVOCATE
By Ed Karvoski Jr.
A longtime passion for dance progressed to working as a dance/movement therapist for Donna Newman-Bluestein. In recent years, personal family experience compelled her to focus her work on helping people with dementia.
“My father had dementia and I saw that the care he was given was not anywhere near good enough,” she shared. “People with disabilities who cannot speak and advocate for themselves get minimal care. I want to right that wrong.”
Psychology Today
Mind Your Body: Dance Yourself Happy
By Lane Anderson
July 1, 2010
The physically expressive nature of dance also helps people release and thereby recognize pent-up feelings, the first step to dealing with them. ‘Depressed patients tend to have a curved back, which brings the head down so it's facing the ground,’ says Donna Newman-Bluestein, a dance therapist with the American Dance Therapy Association. ‘Dancing lifts the body to an open, optimistic posture.’
Chicago Tribune
By Jackie Pilossoph
July 21, 2016
Donna Newman-Bluestein is a board-certified body movement therapist, a certified movement analyst and a licensed mental health counselor, and is the official spokesperson for the American Dance Therapy Association.
"Dance movement therapy is about the integration of the body, heart, mind and spirit," said Newman-Bluestein, who has been practicing in the field since 1978. "Our bodies have tremendous wisdom that verbal psychotherapy does not address. You know the gut instinct? There's something to that."
USA TODAY
Dance, art boost memories for Alzheimer's patients
By Shari Rudavsky
August 19, 2013
Dance therapists have known about the benefits of movement for the elderly for decades, says Donna Newman-Bluestein, a spokeswoman for the American Dance Therapy Association and a dance therapist in the Boston area.
Through her work with seniors with significant dementia, Newman-Bluestein has noted that dance helps them increase their vitality and the number of social interactions they have. She speculates that the movement helps improve their circulation and breathing, which may improve their brain health.
However, the most significant change that Newman-Bluestein sees is the impact dance has on a person's sense of isolation, lack of power and loneliness.
Moving Toward Recovery: Dance/Movement Therapy
interview for ALLTREATMENT.COM
By Joshua Gordon
Donna Newman-Bluestein: “It’s different for every practitioner and with every client — no two sessions will look alike. The American Dance Therapy Association website states that dance/movement therapy is focused on movement behavior as it emerges in a therapeutic relationship. Everything we think,everything we feel, everything we’ve ever experienced, lives in the body. The body is the storehouse ofour past experience. So whether it’s in a conscious movement or a movement that is unconscious, we areexpressing ourselves.
Dance/movement therapists use observation skills: when we see the movement, we respond to that and we build on strengths. We see what’s present and we see what’s missing.”
Interview on "Be My Guest"
Interview on hopeful aging with Dr. John Zeisel
Interview with Orit Krug on Dance and Dementia
Donna informs us how emotional connection, social interaction, and body-based communication are the most important elements of older adult & Dementia care. Visit mindyourbodydmt.com Donna Newman-Bluestein is a Board Certified dance/movement therapist, Certified Movement Analyst, mental health counselor, senior lecturer for Lesley University, and performer with the intergenerational dance company Back Pocket Dancers.