Introduction: The effects of dance therapy are not limited to the enhancement of body composition associated with aerobic exercise; mental activation has also been verified. In this study, we combined dance with the delayed playback task to examine the cognitive effects.

Method: In cooperation with Takaishi City, Osaka, and the city's health center, the elderly were invited to participate in a weekly dance therapy session, for a total of eight sessions. In the delayed playback task, words were memorized before the dance and replayed after the dance, starting with four words and increasing to seven words in stages. The cognitive tests used were Matsui's 10-word memory test: immediate and delayed playback, Yamaguchi kanji symbol substitution test, and word recall test. The psychological scale used was a 5-point face scale. Paired t-test was used for analysis.

Results: Thirty older adults were recruited and the results of 28 participants were analyzed. Their mean age was 75.3 ± 5.7, with 2 males and 26 females. Immediate playback test improved from an average of 28 to 31 out of 40 points, and delayed playback from 7 to 9 out of 10 points: p<0.01. In the symbol substitution test, the score improved from 51 to 57 out of 75: p<0.05. In the face scale, psychological stress decreased from 3.2 to 2.8 out of 5, although this was not significant: p=0.056.

Conclusion: Dance therapy had cognitive effects when combined with delayed playback task.

Kazue Sawami has a Ph.D. in Health Sciences and she is currently a professor at Nara Medical University. Her research group is conducting intervention studies to prevent dementia in the elderly and to select effective intervention techniques.

Clinical trial registration information can be viewed below.

UMIN000037544

UMIN000045740

UMIN000037209

UMIN000039030