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Published, Version of Record (VoR)Open Access (License Unspecified), Open
Journal article
Dance/movement therapy for improving psychological and physical outcomes in cancer patients
Cochrane database of systematic reviews, v 2015(1), pp CD007103-CD007103
07 Jan 2015
PMID: 25565627
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Dance/movement therapy for cancer patients
The issue
Cancer may result in extensive emotional, physical and social suffering. Current cancer care increasingly incorporates psychosocial interventions to improve quality of life. Creative arts therapies such as dance/movement, music, art and drama therapy have been used to aid care and recovery. Following medical therapies, which can be invasive, people with cancer use dance/movement therapy to learn to accept and reconnect with their bodies, build new self‐confidence, enhance self‐expression, address feelings of isolation, depression, anger, fear and distrust and strengthen personal resources. It has also been used to improve range of arm motion and to reduce arm circumference after mastectomy or lumpectomy. For this review, studies were considered only if dance/movement therapy was provided by a formally trained dance/movement therapist or by trainees in a formal program.
The aim of the review
This review is an update of a previous Cochrane review from 2011, which included two studies which did not find support for an effect of dance/movement therapy on body image, the only common outcome between the two studies. The aim was to examine the impact of dance/movement therapy on psychological and physical outcomes in people with cancer.
For this review update, we searched for additional trials on the effect of dance/movement therapy on psychological and physical outcomes in people with cancer. We searched for published and ongoing studies up toJuly 2014. We considered all studies in which dance/movement therapy was compared with any form of standard treatment.
What are the main findings?
We identified one new study for this update. The three studies included a a total of 207 participants, which were women with breast cancer. The studies were small in size. We found no evidence of an effect for depression, stress, anxiety, fatigue, and body image. The findings of individual studies suggest that dance/movement therapy may have a beneficial effect on the quality of life, somatization (i.e. distress arising from perceptions of bodily dysfunction) and vigor of women with breast cancer. No adverse effects of dance/movement therapy interventions were reported.
Quality of the evidence
The evidence is based on only three small studies and the quality of the evidence is not strong.
What are the conclusions?
No conclusions could be drawn regarding the effect of dance/movement therapy on psychological and physical outcomes in cancer patients because of an insufficient number of studies. More research is needed. We did not identify any conflicts of interests in the included studies.
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Details
- Title
- Dance/movement therapy for improving psychological and physical outcomes in cancer patients
- Creators
- Joke Bradt - Drexel UniversityMinjung Shim - Drexel UniversitySherry W Goodill - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Cochrane database of systematic reviews, v 2015(1), pp CD007103-CD007103
- Publisher
- John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Creative Arts Therapies
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000368675900004
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-84948787172
- Other Identifier
- 991019168288704721
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- Web of Science research areas
- Rehabilitation