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Dancing with health : quality of life and physical improvements from an EU collaborative dance programme with women following breast cancer treatment

Karcou, V; Dudley-Swarbrick, I; Starkey, J; Parsons, AS; Aithal, S; Omylinska-Thurston, J; Verkooijen, HM; van den Boogaard, R; Dochevska, Y; Djobova, S; Zdravkov, I; Dimitrova, I; Moceviciene, A; Bonifacino, A; Asumi, AM; Forgione, D; Ferrari, A; Grazioli, E; Cerulli, C; Tranchita, E; Sacchetti, M; Parisi, A

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Authors

V Karcou

I Dudley-Swarbrick

J Starkey

S Aithal

HM Verkooijen

R van den Boogaard

Y Dochevska

S Djobova

I Zdravkov

I Dimitrova

A Moceviciene

A Bonifacino

AM Asumi

D Forgione

A Ferrari

E Grazioli

C Cerulli

E Tranchita

M Sacchetti

A Parisi



Contributors

D Lamela
Editor

Abstract

Background
Women’s health has received renewed attention in the last few years including the rehabilitation of women whose health has been affected by breast cancer. Dancing has often been regarded as attractive for women but research with women recovering from breast cancer is still in its infancy.

Methods
Dancing with Health is multi-site evaluation study that aimed to evaluate a dance programme for women in recovery from breast cancer across five European countries. A standardised 32-hour dance protocol introduced a range of Latin American dances within a sports and exercise framework with influences from dance movement therapy. Fifty-four women (N=54) mean age 53.51 SD 7.99 participated in the study who have had breast cancer diagnosis < three years, chemotherapy > 6 weeks and no indication of metastasis or scheduled surgery/chemotherapy/radiation treatment for the duration of the intervention. Primary outcome data was collected for anthropometric and fitness measures next to cancer-related quality of life. All evaluation measures were taken pre and post intervention.

Results
Statistically significant changes were found for: (i) weight (Mdn 69.84 ± 15.32 vs 65.50 ± 15.45 kg), forearm circumference (right Mdn 26.00 ± 2.05 vs 25.75 ± 3.00; left Mdn 26.00 ± 3.00 vs 26.00 ± 3.50 cm) and hip (M 104.94 ± 8.66 vs 103.77 ± 8.25 cm); (ii) 6-minute walking (M 521.36 ± 71.28 vs 557.60 ± 87.62 mt), handgrip (right M 22.78 ± 5.74 vs 24.70 ± 5.79; left M 20.76 ± 5.34 vs 22.64 ± 5.67 kg), sit-to-stand (Mdn 13.50 ± 3.50 vs 15.00 ± 5.25 no.) and sit-and-reach (Mdn 1.00 ± 10.00 vs 3.00 ± 11.50 cm); (iii) the EORTC-QLQ C30 summary score as well as the subscales of emotional and social functioning and symptoms. In all cases the direction of change was positive, while Cohen’s d calculated showed that the effect of the intervention for these parameters ranged from intermediate to large.

Conclusion
Changes on the above anthropometric, fitness and quality of life measures suggest that the intervention was of value to the participating women recovering from breast cancer. Results also advocate collaborative efforts across countries to further research.

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jan 27, 2021
Publication Date Feb 24, 2021
Deposit Date Mar 4, 2021
Publicly Available Date Mar 4, 2021
Journal Frontiers in Psychology
Electronic ISSN 1664-1078
Publisher Frontiers Media
Volume 12
Pages 635578
DOI https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.635578
Publisher URL https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.635578
Related Public URLs http://frontiersin.org/Psychology

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