Culture and Health

The effect of dance on physical health and cognition in community dwelling older adults

A systematic review and meta-analysis

The purpose of this systematic review is to summarise the evidence examining the effectiveness of dance in older adults to go to social prescribing programmes. The review examines randomised controlled trials that evaluated the effectiveness of dance programmes on elderly adults living in the community conducted between 2007 and December 2020. Data on participants, dance programmes and outcomes of interest were extracted and summarised narratively. Where possible, a meta-analysis was performed on the outcome data.
Twenty-two studies met the inclusion criteria, 15 were considered of reasonable quality and 7 of high quality according to the PEDro scale. Nineteen studies included in the meta-analysis found that dance can improve mobility and endurance compared to no exercise and provided equivalent results to other exercise programmes.