Dance/exercise impact for adults with mental health disorders: a systematic review

Abstract

This paper investigated the effect of dance and exercise on the health promotion of adults with mental health disorders. As mental health is a social issue, the characteristics of physical movement through dance and exercise were reviewed to find ways to effectively approach mental health services and treatment. Based on existing papers, a systematic review was conducted using Web of Science, Google Scholar, and Scopus to comprehensively investigate and organise the correlation between physical movement and mental health, the characteristics of dance therapy, and psychotherapy of exercise. Studies have shown that dance and exercise therapy helps reduce side effects, relieve depression and anxiety from actual antipsychotics, and helps to recognise one’s problems and increase the willingness to treat them. New therapy development according to the online era and limitations according to difficulty need to be addressed.

Keywords:

• Dance therapy
• mental health disorder
• health promotion
• physical activity
• exercise intervention

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eunhye Son

Eunhye Son received a PhD Candidate in Department of Beauty Industry, Graduate School, Sungshin Women’s University, Seoul 02844, Republic of KOREA. Her research focuses on the direction and impact of the environmentally conscious beauty industry.

Ki Han Kwon

Ki Han Kwon is a Professor, College of General Education, Kookmin University, Seoul 02707, Republic of KOREA. He focused his research on the inner beauty of modern healthy lifestyles.