Improving the Quality of Life in Persons with Dementia through a Pilot Study of a Creative Dance Movement Programme in an Asian Setting

Methods: A prospective, cohort study was performed outpatient, on ten community-dwelling patients with mildmoderate dementia, with their care-givers. All the study participants underwent a creative dance movement programme (Everyday Waltzes) by two dance therapists, weekly for six weeks. The Alzheimer’s disease Quality of Life Inventory (ADQoL) scores of both patients and their caregivers’ impression of the patient’s quality of life in each of the 13 items, and combinations of items to obtain physical, social and psychological domains, pre and post intervention were recorded in a numerical scale. Wilcoxon’s signed rank test was used to determine the statistical significance of any change in summated score of each of the domains and overall score, post intervention in both patients and caregivers.