Department of Psychology, University of Almeria, 04120 Almería, Spain.
Health Research Center, University of Almeria, 04120 Almería, Spain.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Mar 17;17(6):1960. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17061960.
Aging is generally considered to be related to physical and cognitive decline. This is especially prominent in the frontal and parietal lobes, underlying executive functions and spatial memory, respectively. This process could be successfully mitigated in certain ways, such as through the practice of aerobic sports. With regard to this, dancing integrates physical exercise with music and involves retrieval of complex sequences of steps and movements creating choreographies.
In this study, we compared 26 non-professional salsa dancers (mean age 55.3 years, age-range 49-70 years) with 20 non-dancers (mean age 57.6 years, age-range 49-70 years) by assessing two variables: their executive functions and spatial memory performance.
results showed that dancers scored better that non-dancers in our tests, outperforming controls in executive functions-related tasks. Groups did not differ in spatial memory performance.
This work suggests that dancing can be a valid way of slowing down the natural age-related cognitive decline. A major limitation of this study is the lack of fitness assessment in both groups. In addition, since dancing combines multiple factors like social contact, aerobic exercise, cognitive work with rhythms, and music, it is difficult to determine the weight of each variable.
衰老通常被认为与身体和认知能力下降有关。这在额叶和顶叶尤为明显，分别与执行功能和空间记忆有关。这一过程可以通过某些方式成功缓解，例如进行有氧运动。在这方面，舞蹈将身体锻炼与音乐相结合，涉及到复杂的舞步和动作序列的检索，创造出舞蹈编排。
在这项研究中，我们通过评估两个变量，将 26 名非专业萨尔萨舞者（平均年龄 55.3 岁，年龄范围 49-70 岁）与 20 名非舞者（平均年龄 57.6 岁，年龄范围 49-70 岁）进行了比较。
结果表明，在我们的测试中，舞者的得分优于非舞者，在与执行功能相关的任务中表现优于对照组。两组在空间记忆表现上没有差异。
这项工作表明，跳舞可以是一种减缓自然衰老相关认知能力下降的有效方法。本研究的一个主要局限性是两组都缺乏健身评估。此外，由于舞蹈结合了多种因素，如社交接触、有氧运动、节奏和音乐的认知工作，因此很难确定每个变量的权重。
