Therapeutic Dancing for Parkinson's Disease

SummaryTherapeutic dancing has been advocated as an effective adjunct to conventional physical therapies for people living with Parkinson's disease (PD). This systematic review evaluates studies on the outcomes of different dance genres on mobility and quality of life in PD. We searched databases including CINHAL (1982–2015), Medline (1922–2015), Scopus (1996–2015), Web of Science (2002–2015), Embase (2007–2015), PEDro (1999–2015) and the Cochrane Library (1996–2015). The key words were: Parkinson's disease, Parkinson*, Parkinsonism, dance, dance therapy, dance genres, safety, feasibility, and quality of life. Two independent investigators reviewed the texts. Only randomized controlled trials, quasirandomized controlled trials, and case series studies were included. There was emerging evidence that therapeutic dance can be safe and feasible for people with mild to moderately severe PD, with beneficial effects on walking, freezing of gait, and health related quality of life.