Meta-Analysis of Dance Versus Exercise for Cognitive Impairment

209 randomized controlled trials with 3,773 participants compare dance to other exercise modalities for individuals with mild cognitive impairment and dementia. The Bayesian network meta-analysis ranks interventions for outcomes like global cognition, working memory, and physical performance. The study, authored by Ye Zhao, was published in 2026.

Use Cases

• Rank exercise modalities like dance for global cognition using Surface Under the Cumulative Ranking Curve values from the network meta-analysis.
• Compare standardized mean differences for dance interventions on specific outcomes such as working memory and attention.
• Analyze the statistical significance (p-values) of dance versus other exercise modalities for psychological wellbeing and physical performance.

Strengths

• Synthesizes evidence from 209 randomized controlled trials, providing a broad evidence base.
• Includes data from 3,773 total participants across the included studies.
• Employs a Bayesian network meta-analysis to rank multiple intervention types for direct and indirect comparison.

Limitations

• Several favorable rankings for dance are based on evidence from single studies, limiting the strength of conclusions.
• The underlying data is aggregated from published trials; individual participant-level data is not available for deeper analysis.
• The dataset is a single 318.4 KB PDF file, limiting direct computational analysis without manual extraction.

Provenance

Source

Systematic review and network meta-analysis published on figshare by author Ye Zhao.

Collection Method

Data extracted from 209 randomized controlled trials identified via a systematic search of five databases.

Time Range

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Freshness

Last updated March 2026.

Geography

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