Effects of dance on the postural balance, cognition and functional autonomy of older adults

OBJECTIVE: to evaluate the postural balance, cognition and functional autonomy of older adults with dementia, who are long-stay inpatients, subjected to ballroom dancing. METHOD: simple randomized clinical study. Older adult sample: control group (30) and experimental group (30). The groups were subjected to the protocol of functional autonomy for activities of daily living; to the assessment of cognition (mini-mental state examination); and to the analysis of postural balance (stabilometric and postural platforms). The analysis of variance with repeated measures for group and time factors, and Scheffe's post hoc test were used, with significance of p < 0.05. RESULTS: For the mini-mental state examination, the control group presented a 24.27 mean, and the experimental 22.75. Functional autonomy for activities of daily living - experimental: 54.47 ± 7.24 (p < 0.0001) x control: 61.77 ± 8.47 (p = 0.011). Postural balance - experimental: X = 3.16 ± 3.44 (p = 0.02) x control = X = 6.30 ± 7.62 (p = 0.04). CONCLUSION: Ballroom dancing can be recommended for older adults to provide improvement in their balance and motor performance of the activities of daily living.