Abstract
Recently, dance has become a therapeutic and rehabilitative intervention for individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Compared with traditional gait training or other rehabilitative interventions, dance appears to be a safe, fun, and an alternative way to achieve functional changes and improvements in mobility, gait, balance, and quality of life. This paper reviews literature regarding dance and PD in terms of enrollment size, dosage and frequency of intervention, class size, comparison or control groups, outcome measures, and effect size. A search was conducted on PubMed, Web of Sciences, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar using the terms “dance” and “Parkinson’s disease.” Ten papers were included in this review: seven of which examined walking speed, nine that included measures of balance, one study that examined upper extremity function, eight studies that measured disability rating, and one study that examined falls. Only five studies had control groups, three of which were active control groups. Various studies have clinical design issues such as inclusion of a control group, outcome measures or the way in which the intervention was administered. Essential outcome measures to include are safety, tolerability, quality of life, and falls. These measures determine information on treatment effects, adverse event rates, and dropout rates.
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to acknowledge Yen Jay Tran for his assistance with copyediting and reference management.
Conflict of interest
Rosalind Mandelbaum declares no conflicts of interest. Albert Lo declares grants from the VA, National MS Society, and Acorda Therapeutics as well as travel reimbursement from the VA, National MS Society, Acorda Therapeutics and Paralyzed Veterans of America. Both Rosalind Mandelbaum and Albert Lo are government employees.
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Mandelbaum, R., Lo, A.C. Examining Dance as an Intervention in Parkinson’s Disease: A Systematic Review. Am J Dance Ther 36, 160–175 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10465-014-9181-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10465-014-9181-6