What is Dance Movement Therapy (DMT)?
DMT is defined by the European Association Dance Movement Therapy (EADMT) as ‘the therapeutic use of movement to further the emotional, cognitive, physical, spiritual and social integration of the individual.
Abstract. This systematic review assessed the published literature on dance movement therapy interventions with adults aged 60 years and older with a mental health disorder. Our objective was to identify published studies of the effects of DMT in older age psychiatry and to critically appraise methodological quality of the included studies. We searched the databases CINAHL, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and PSYNDEX, and Google Scholar. We also searched the reference list of relevant papers in order to identify publications that were not found through the initial database search. The reviewers independently critically appraised all full text articles that met our inclusion criteria. A final 16 studies met the inclusion criteria: nine were primary studies (one randomized controlled trial, three quasi- experimental studies, and five qualitative studies) and seven were secondary studies (systematic reviews). Dementia was the subject in 15 studies, and depression in one, reflecting a possible bias in the literature. The methodological quality of the primary studies was lower than for the secondary studies.
DMT is defined by the European Association Dance Movement Therapy (EADMT) as ‘the therapeutic use of movement to further the emotional, cognitive, physical, spiritual and social integration of the individual.