PasoDoble, a Proposed Dance/Music for People With Parkinson's Disease and Their Caregivers

Effects of Dance Interventions on Cognition, Psycho-Behavioral Symptoms, Motor Functions, and Quality of Life in Older Adult Patients With Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review

Background: Dance interventions are considered beneficial for older patients with mild cognitive impairment in many aspects. We conducted a comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the effects of dance on different aspects (cognitive function, emotions, physical function, and quality of life) of this population. Methods: A systematic search of PubMed, Web of Science, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Embase, American Psychological Association PsycInfo, ProQuest, Scopus, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, the Chinese BioMedical Literature Database, the VIP Database for Chinese Technical Periodicals, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Wanfang Data database was performed. Two reviewers independently assessed the study quality. Results: Fourteen studies were retrieved from the databases for analysis. The pooled results showed that dance interventions significantly improved global cognition (standardized mean difference [SMD] = 0.73, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.47 to 0.99, P < 0.00001), rote memory (mean difference [MD] = -2.12, 95% CI: -4.02 to -0.21, P = 0.03), immediate recall (SMD = 0.54, 95% CI: 0.30 to 0.78, P < 0.0001), delayed recall (SMD = 0.56, 95% CI: 0.26 to 0.86, P = 0.0002) and attention (SMD = 0.38, 95% CI: 0.13 to 0.64, P = 0.003). No significant improvement was found in executive function, language, depression, anxiety, dementia-related behavioral symptoms, motor function, and quality of life. Conclusion: Dance interventions benefit most aspects of cognitive functions. The evidence for the effects of dance on psycho-behavioral symptoms, motor function and quality of life remains unclear. More trials with rigorous study designs are necessary to provide this evidence.

Parkinson's Disease Motor Symptom Progression Slowed with Multisensory Dance Learning over 3-Years: A Preliminary Longitudinal Investigation

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease that has a fast progression of motor dysfunction within the first 5 years of diagnosis, showing an annual motor rate of decline of the Movement Disorder Society Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) between 5.2 and 8.9 points. We aimed to determine both motor and non-motor PD symptom progression while participating in dance classes once per week over a period of three years. Longitudinal data was assessed for a total of 32 people with PD using MDS-UPDRS scores. Daily motor rate of decline was zero (slope = 0.000146) in PD-Dancers, indicating no motor impairment, whereas the PD-Reference group showed the expected motor decline across three years (p < 0.01). Similarly, non-motor aspects of daily living, motor experiences of daily living, and motor complications showed no significant decline. A significant group (PD-Dancers and PD-Reference) by days interaction showed that PD who train once per week have less motor impairment (M = 18.75) than PD-References who do not train (M = 24.61) over time (p < 0.05). Training is effective at slowing both motor and non-motor PD symptoms over three years as shown in decreased scores of the MDS-UPDRS.