Systematic Review of Dance Versus Exercise for Cognitive Impairment

A systematic review and network meta-analysis includes 209 randomized controlled trials involving 3,773 participants with mild cognitive impairment or dementia. The study compares the efficacy of dance interventions against other exercise modalities on cognitive function, psychological wellbeing, and physical performance outcomes. It was authored by Ye Zhao and published on figshare in 2026.

Use Cases

• Compare standardized mean differences for global cognition measured by MoCA between dance and other exercise modalities.
• Rank exercise interventions using Surface Under the Cumulative Ranking Curve values for outcomes like working memory and attention.
• Analyze p-values from pairwise meta-analyses to identify statistically significant effects for dance interventions.
• Examine the network meta-analysis results for physical performance and mood outcomes where dance generally ranked second or mid-range.

Strengths

• The analysis is based on 209 randomized controlled trials, providing a broad evidence base.
• Includes data from 3,773 individual participants across the included studies.
• Employs both pairwise and network meta-analysis within a random-effects model for comparative efficacy ranking.
• Published under a permissive CC BY 4.0 license for open access and reuse.

Limitations

• Several favorable ranking results for dance were driven by single studies, indicating sparse evidence for some outcomes.
• The dataset is a single 1003.3 KB PDF file, limiting direct computational analysis of the underlying trial data.
• The review's conclusions are constrained by the heterogeneity and quality of the original 209 included trials.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Ye Zhao.

Collection Method

Systematic review and Bayesian network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials from five databases.

Time Range

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Freshness

Last updated in March 2026, indicating recent analysis.

Geography

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