Helping patients to embrace dance as therapy

Learn how Anna Do bridges her love of dance with occupational therapy.

"Occupational therapy is about doing, being, and becoming. I love the idea of helping people return to doing the things we take for granted daily."

Anna Do, OTD, OTR/L, CBIS, PAMS, began her occupational therapy journey at Hamilton College in Syracuse, New York, where she majored in psychology with a double minor in creative writing and dance. Her sisters were already working in the health professions, and Anna always knew that she wanted to work in the healthcare field but wasn’t sure how her degree combination would translate into a career. Her sister recommended that she look into occupational therapy, and after shadowing an OT practitioner, Anna discovered that she really loved it.

“I love the idea of helping people return to doing the things that we take for granted every day. It’s a very meaningful thing to do. But aside from that, when I started looking into OT programs, I discovered that I had already taken most of the prerequisite courses because I wanted to, not because I was required to. As OTs, we do so much with psychosocial skills and mental health, and there's a huge creative process with both OT and dance. There's so much movement and understanding of kinesiology, so it was just a perfect blend of everything I was interested in academically and everything I was passionate about.”

After a two-week break from graduating with her bachelor’s degree, Anna started an entry-level doctor of occupational therapy (OTD) program in Boston, Massachusetts, at the MGH Institute of Health Professions. The end of her program coincided with COVID, and while she could still graduate on time, the pandemic made her feel like she needed more training. She applied to the Occupational Therapy Physical Rehabilitation Fellowship program at Casa Colina Hospital and Centers for Healthcare in Pomona, California.

“I was able to rotate across the inpatient, outpatient, and transitional living settings and gain a lot of learning, mentorship, and experience through this intensive postgraduate program and build my skills as an OT. I loved it and was able to continue working there full-time afterward.”

Anna is devoted to excelling in her field and getting as much education as possible to benefit herself and her patients. Even with all her education and work experience up to this point, she felt like something was still missing for her. As a result, Anna began a PhD program in Rehabilitation and Movement Science at Azusa Pacific University in January of 2023. “I wanted to get my PhD because I felt like I needed so much more research and learning in OT. There were a lot of gaps between the clinical practice and the academic world, and I wanted to do something to bridge them.”

While Anna’s research interests began with low vision health disparities when she was in OT school, she has shifted to dance and how it can help people. “I realized that one of my passions is in dance therapy. So right now, I'm beginning to work on my dissertation in dance therapy for adults with neurological conditions.”

Growing up, Anna never took formal dance classes but still found opportunities to immerse herself in dance. She was also inspired by research professor and author Brené Brown, who believes that we’re all naturally capable of dancing, and Anna incorporates this idea into her OT approach. “I just think of it as the movement of expression and being able to encompass your authentic self and bring out a lot of unformed and unconscious thought; movement brings it all out together. I developed a dance therapy program at my previous clinical setting for people with traumatic brain injury, so I have a lot of clinical experience in this area. I also presented this type of intervention at the International Association of Dance, Medicine, and Science Conference last fall in Italy, which was really cool.”

Anna has seen time and time again how dance can unlock something in a patient that makes a huge difference. She recalled one patient who had so much chronic pain that it hurt for her to both sit and stand, so she felt like she couldn’t do anything. But Anna discovered that this patient used to dance as a fitness routine all the time before her brain injury. “When I did the dance group with her, she was up. She was moving. She was doing all these things with her legs that I had never seen her do before, and it was just the perfect way to motivate her to do something. In her case, there was a big mental block, and because of her chronic pain, she was afraid to move for fear it would exacerbate the pain. She needed something to help her get past that mental barrier, and dancing was it.”

Anna follows a well-known OT framework from Ann Wilcock called  “Doing-Being-Becoming.” “If you tell someone to stand there and do 50 arm raises, they'll get bored. But if you tell someone to go and put spices in their kitchen cabinet, then that's actually meaningful in a real-life scenario that they can enjoy.”

In another example, Anna had a patient who suffered a stroke that impaired the whole right side of her body. This patient was inattentive to that side, too, so it was as if her whole world was only on her left side. However, Anna discovered that this patient used to do Zumba every day, so she started incorporating music and dancing into her therapy. “Once she started dancing, she was able to initiate moving her right side. And even though it wasn't perfect, she suddenly regained awareness of her right side. It’s a very good way to help people forget about their physical problems and try and do it, even if it's not in the most perfect or beautiful way. Dancing really engages people.”

When it comes to utilizing dance in OT, Anna stressed that it’s important to make the movements accessible and easy without making it feel silly or dumbed down. Group settings can help as patients will often be more encouraged to try dancing if they see others doing it and enjoying it. However, it works best if the patient already likes dancing or is somewhat open to it. It won’t work otherwise, and Anna wouldn't force someone to dance if they are highly resistant to it. Anna is currently developing her dissertation plan on the feasibility and effectiveness of a dance therapy program for adults with neurological conditions across the continuum of care in rehabilitation.  

Anna has always wanted to grow in her academic career, so when she saw a faculty job posting at Alliant, she decided to go for it. “When I interviewed with the MOT program director, Adele Breen-Franklin, and MOT academic fieldwork coordinator, Courtney Bale, I loved talking with them and hearing their passion and excitement. It made me really want to join the team. One of the biggest things that drew me in was being part of developing a new program. We have so much excitement and enthusiasm to make our MOT program the best of the best!”

Anna shares Adele's philosophy that learning should not be siloed. She doesn’t want students to just read a textbook and then go into the clinical world and be confused about how everything connects. “Adele really emphasized that we need to make the classroom and the clinical environment as one. In our MOT program, we are making it a mission to decrease that gap and make it so that students can be proficient and prepared for being clinicians.”

Part of that will also come from the regular fieldwork that MOT students will do at the end of every trimester directly related to what they’ve just learned in the program. “The students will do a problem-based learning session where they’ll take what they’ve learned from all their classes and apply it to a case study, which I think is very cool.”

Anna is excited to be on campus starting this summer and commented on how welcoming everyone has been at Alliant. She is ready to develop courses in psychosocial and community practice, research, and assistive technology and become a full-time assistant professor for the MOT program this fall. “I really look forward to being part of the community.”