ABSTRACT

Dancing is a beneficial physical activity to improve physical, cognitive and social functions, and all the benefits of dancing, especially ballet, for older adults including elderly patients were portrayed in this paper. Characteristics of old age and their relations with physical activities were briefly sketched at the introductory part of the paper. Regular physical activity improves the physical function and lowers the risk of falls or chronic diseases, prevents cognitive decline, and boosts self-esteem, resulting in increased positive emotions. Regular dancing is more effective in boosting physical, cognitive and social functions, especially maintaining balance and posture stability than regular exercise. Ballet, which requires more expression compared to other types of dance, would be the most therapeutic dance with verbal communication. Especially ballet barre exercising is considered to be a beneficial form of physical activity for the older adults who have weak muscles or Parkinson’s disease, and basic but complex movements of ballet are effective means of building a sense of challenge, improving mental health, and preventing dementia through brain activation. Ballet-based exercise has been extensively applied as a health promotion program for older adults in many countries, but not much in Korea. In the last part of this paper, it was discussed that effective therapy program based on ballet movement would be needed for the elderly patients.