The impact of dance movement interventions on psychological health in older adults without dementia: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

AbstractMultimodal lifestyle-based interventions that integrate physical, mental and social stimulation could promote mental health and brain resilience against dementia. This meta-analysis examined the efficacy of dance movement interventions (DMI) on psychological health in older adults. Pre-registration was done with PROSPERO (CRD42021265112). PubMed, Web of Science and PsycInfo were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCT) evaluating the effects of DMI (>4 weeks’ duration) on measures of psychological health (primary outcome) and cognitive function (additional outcome) among older adults without dementia (≥55). Data of 13 primary RCT (n=943,n-DMI=474,n-control=469) were synthesized using a random effects meta-analysis with robust variance estimation. DMI had a small positive effect on overall psychological health (g=0.31;95% CI: [0.09,0.53];p=.01,I2=62.55) and a medium effect on general cognitive function (g=0.48;95% CI: [0.03,0.93],p=.04,I2=82.45) compared to comparators. None of the primary studies included measures of neuroplasticity. DMI may serve as a multimodal enrichment strategy to promote healthy mental aging. High-quality intervention studies are needed to expand evidence for psychological domains and identify the underlying neurophysiological correlates.