Dose-response Effect of Community Dance Programme

Dance interventions have been shown beneficial for older adults, such as improving their physical health, cognitive function, as well as their psychosocial and emotional well-being by ameliorating depression, anxiety, and social isolation. A pilot study (NUS-IRB-2020-808) showed that those in the dancing group reported significantly higher quality of life (p=0.044). The qualitative findings provided insights that older adults enjoyed participating in the creatively crafted dance programme, while learning nature and world travel-based dance movements. Thus, this study aims to use data derived from the pilot study to design and conduct a definitive study to define the dose-response effect that a systematic dance programme may have on physical, cognitive, and psycho-social health in our local aging population. A cluster-randomised trial with a co-design approach and process, evaluation will be applied. A qualitative approach with in-depth, face-to-face, focused group discussions (FGDs-needs assessment) will be conducted for stakeholders (older adults, AAC staff, and dance instructors) to understand their needs (e.g., factors promoting dance, measures to overcome common side effects of dance, social-cultural considerations) and seek their opinions further to develop the Community Dance Programme (CDP). CDP will be developed following the WHO ICOPE's guidelines and validated by a panel of multi-disciplinary experts. The participants will be randomly separated into 2 clusters: Intervention Clusters (2 sessions/week and 75 minutes/session) and Active Control Clusters (1 session/week and 1 hour/session). The interventional face to face sessions will be supported by instructional dance videos which allows the seniors to practice the dance on their own time. 12 weeks of dance sessions will be conducted. Objective assessments and self-reported questionnaires will be used pre and post-CDP. Outcome measures will include physical health (Short Physical Performance Battery, Edmonton Frailty Scale, biomarkers), cognitive function (Montreal Cognitive Assessment, Symbol Digit Modalities Test), psychosocial health (Geriatric Depression Scale, de Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale, Subjective Happiness Scale, Social Support Questionnaire), and quality of life (WHOQOL).