Physiotherapist-guided Free Movement Dance for patients with persistent pain is empowering in everyday living. A qualitative study

Figures & data

Table 1. Content and structure of the Free Movement Dance intervention explored in a study of informants’ experiences of the treatment.

Structural frame of a session	Time	Placing	Examples of exercises	Main purpose
Preparation phase (voluntary)	15 min before session	Room open, mats on the floor and chairs, pillows and blankets available, calm background music	Resting in a comfortable, freely chosen position	Calming down Preparation for session
Phase 1	Approximately 10 min	Sitting in a circle	Short period of stillness with body awareness and guidance from PT. Feeling into the body: ‘How am I feeling today? How is my body feeling?’ Short sharing with a ‘talking stone’ going around from person to person	To establish contact with oneself and the PT and group To land into the room and in ‘the presence of the now’
Phase 2	Approximately 20 min	Comfortable, freely chosen positions: for example, sitting, lying in different positions, standing, walking around	Warming up the body part by part with soft music and guidance from the PT. Breathing and voice exercises	Body awareness, exploring contact with the ground and breathing pattern, stretching and releasing movements. Relaxation and connecting to one’s body. Finding the rhythm of one self of the day
Phase 3	Approximately 10 min	Comfortable, freely chosen positions	Resting in body awareness. Taking care and listening to the body signals. PT guides by leading	Awareness of the signals of the body and ability to adjust and pace the movements in the next phase
Phase 4	Approximately 20 min	Comfortable, freely chosen positions	PT guidance. Dance different rhythms: for example flowing, chaos and/or stillness. Dance with awareness of the pain and exploring movements that feel pleasant in the body	Body awareness of how the music and different rhythms affect breathing and pain and to find out how to move without increasing the pain without effort and performance
Phase 5	Approximately 15 min	Comfortable, freely chosen positions	Resting in body awareness with guidance from the PT. Taking care and listening to the body signals. Writing or painting, insights, memories and feelings. Sometimes sharing in groups of two	To gain knowledge about oneself and the reactions from moving with pain. Pace in time and set limits for one self and others. To meet the different aspects of pain and its consequences in one’s life
Phase 6	Approximately 15 min	Sitting in a circle	Verbal reflection taking turns to share something about today’s experiences, answering the question, What did you notice during training today? PT answers questions and/or gives teachings explaining PP, for example	Sharing and verbalising body experiences and to hear others’ reflections. To bring knowledge about PP and its consequences. Give space for asking questions and increasing security

Table 2. Informants of Free Movement Dance intervention

Sociodemographic data and life factors	n
Age (y)
20-29	2
30-39	3
40-49	4
50-59	5
60-69	3
70-79	3
Gender
Male	1
Female	19
Nationality
Swedish (one informant from Iran living in Sweden)	19
Finish	1
Marital status
Partner relationship	10
Single	10
Working ability
Fulltime	1
Sick leave part-time	12
Sick leave full-time	1
Disability pension	1
Retired	5
Numbers of semesters in DBAT
One	2
Two	5
Three	1
Four	4
Five	3
Six	5
Pain areas
Sensitizing syndrome	10
Abdominal pain after uterus extirpation	1
Lower extremities arthroplasty	2
WAD	1
Migraine	1
Chronic fatigue syndrome	1
Low-back pain	1
Cerebral paresis with cervical disc hernia	1
Rheumatoid arthritis	1
Neck pain	1

Figure 1. Flowchart of the recruitment process.

Figure 2. Data analyse according to Graneheim and Lundman.

Figure 3. Results of Free Movement Dance.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.