Effect of Dance on Parkinson Disease Outcomes Lacks Quality Evidence

Dance interventions appear to lead to modest improvements in motor disease severity and aspects of balance in patients with Parkinson disease (PD) compared with usual care, but high-quality data on its effect on other outcomes is lacking, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis published online in BMC Geriatrics.

“As evidence is insufficient to inform practice, evidence of benefits on motor disease severity and balance needs to be considered in the context of user-perception of benefit versus harm and acceptability in the development of practice guideline recommendations,” researchers advised.

The review and meta-analysis focused on 20 trials that randomized a total 723 patients with PD to either dance interventions or standard therapy (physical interventions other than dancing or nonphysical activities). Dance interventions involved in the trials included tango, ballroom, Irish, waltz-foxtrot, folk, Turo, and mixed dances.

Compared with patients assigned to nondance interventions, patients assigned to dance interventions had better motor experience and improved balance, according to the study. Data from five trials of 148 patients showed a -6.01 to -3.84 mean difference on the Movement Disorder Society Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale [MDS-UPDRS] Part III, and data from three trials of 95 patients identified a 4.47 to 6.66 mean difference on the Mini Balance Evaluation Systems Test, or Mini-BESTest.

Gait, agility, and cognitive outcomes, however, did not differ consistently between patient groups.

Pointing out the small samples and methodological limitations in the trials, researchers characterized the certainty of evidence across outcomes as low.

“Given the difficulties in achieving blinding of participants and personnel,” they wrote, “it is essential that future randomized controlled trials adhere to rigorous standards in random sequence generation, allocation concealment, and blinding of outcome assessor, with clear documentation, to offer any improvement in the overall certainty of evidence.”

Reference:
Ismail SR, Lee SWH, Merom D, et al. Evidence of disease severity, cognitive and physical outcomes of dance interventions for persons with Parkinson’s disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Geriatr. 2021;21(1):503. doi:10.1186/s12877-021-02446-w