IGROOVE: Protocol for a randomized, controlled, single-blind trial of dance intervention in older adults with...

Accumulating evidence supports the importance of physical activity for maintaining or improving cognitive and cardiovascular health. Dance movement has been emerging as a form of physical activity that may protect and enhance physical and cognitive function in older adults. Research suggests that dance benefits cognitive health, cardiorespiratory fitness, mobility, and psychosocial function in older adults. However, the amount of dance movement needed to see these benefits cannot be ascertained from the highly heterogenous dance literature. This study aims to characterize the weekly frequency of dance movement needed to benefit cognitive and cardiorespiratory health over 6 months.

IGROOVE is a single-center, randomized, single-blind clinical trial that randomly assigns adults with subjective cognitive decline aged 62 years or older to one of 4 study conditions. Three of the conditions are 60-min dance classes attended once, twice, or three times a week, and the fourth condition is a control music appreciation class that meets once a week for 60 min, for 24 weeks. The primary aim of the study is to determine the optimal frequency of dance movement to achieve improvement in cognition and cardiorespiratory fitness.

IGROOVE aims to fill a gap in the knowledge about the minimum number of weekly dance classes needed to see benefits in cognition and cardiorespiratory fitness by systematically exploring how the frequency of dance movement can affect cognitive function and cardiorespiratory fitness. This information will inform future definitive studies of dance and public health recommendations for dance as physical activity to promote healthy aging.