The joy dance: Specific effects of a single dance intervention on psychiatric patients with depression

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Abstract

This study investigated the specific effects of a dance intervention on the decrease of depression and the increase of vitality and positive affect in 31 psychiatric patients with main or additional diagnosis of depression. Patients participated in one of three conditions: a dance group performing a traditional upbeat circle dance, a group that listened just to the music of the dance (music only), and a group that moved on a home trainer bike (ergometer) up to the same level of arousal as the dance group (movement only). While all three conditions alleviated or stabilized the condition of the patients, results suggest that patients in the dance group profited most from the intervention. They showed significantly less depression than participants in the music group (p < .001) and in the ergometer group (p < .05), and more vitality (p < .05) than participants in the music group on post-test self-report scales immediately after the intervention. Stimulating circle dances can thus have a positive effect on patients with depression and may be recommended for use in dance/movement therapy and other complementary therapies.

Section snippets

DMT effects on depression: a brief literature review

The meta-analysis on the effects of DMT of Ritter and Low (1996) quotes two studies involving psychiatric patients with depression (Brooks & Stark, 1989; Heber, 1993) and five studies on persons with depression altogether (Dosamantes, 1990; Dosamantes-Alperson & Merill, 1980; Kuettel, 1982). The effect sizes these studies report are moderate to high. The meta-analysis should be read together with the methodological critique by Cruz and Sabers (1998), who found that the actual effect sizes were

Lack of vertical movement in patients with depression

Research on embodiment1

Our study

How much joy sleeps inside of us and we do not awaken it

This study used a three-group repeated-measure design, comparing the treatment group (dance) to both a music-only (music) and a movement-only control group (home trainer). The goal of the study was to investigate specific effects of dance/movement therapy. A simple structured form of dance that can be used at the beginning or the end of DMT sessions was selected: a circle dance from Israel (Hava Nagila—“Let us have joy”) geared to evoke

Sample

Thirty-one patients from the Psychiatric University Hospital in Heidelberg volunteered to participate in this study (18 men and 13 women). Mean age was 42.7 (S.D. = 14.9, range 21–66). All were diagnosed with depression using ICD 10, either by main or additional diagnosis. There were 21 patients with a main diagnosis of depression (moderate or severe recurrent depressive disorder; moderate or severe depressive episodes; schizoaffective disorder, depressive type; bipolar affective disorders,

Results

Two one-way ANOVAs were computed to analyze how condition (dance versus music, and dance versus home trainer) affected the difference score Δ of depression, vitality and affect. All three dependent variables were correlated between r = .60 and r = .85. The alpha level chosen was p < .05. Results suggest that depression decreased significantly in the dance group only as compared to the music-only group (F(20, 1) = 14,19; p = .001; d = 1.28) and the movement only group (F(20, 1) = 4,57; p = .046; d = .90).

Discussion

Considering the small sample size (with just the minimum number of participants to do the computations) the results obtained in this study are very encouraging and helpful in setting priorities for future studies. Participants in the dance group showed a significant decrease of depression, whereas depression scores did not change for participants of the other two groups. Dance acted thus specifically on depression reduction. Further, participants in the dance group showed a significantly higher

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