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Ballroom Dance: Linking Serious Leisure to Successful Aging
1Department of Occupational Therapy and Occupational Science, Towson University, Towson, MD, USA Rstevens-ratchford@towson.edu.
Objective:
This study explored ballroom dance as serious leisure and successful aging in a sample of community-dwelling older adults.
Methods:
Qualitative procedures were used to explore stories of ballroom dance and successful aging.
Results:
Participants described positive successful aging and active leisure engagement. Three themes emerged from thematic analyses: (a) Ballroom Dance as Serious Leisure: Its Dimensions; (b) Ballroom Dance: Its Link to Successful Aging; (c) The Affinity: We Love to Dance!.
Conclusion:
The participants' ballroom dance revealed serious leisure characteristics in conjunction with their successful aging. They loved to dance, self-identified as ballroom dancers, and orchestrated their dance activities within its social world. Future research should examine the relation of successful aging to the social world of ballroom dance.
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