A study of the effects of dance as a physical activity on memory performance, self ssteem and life quality of the elderly

Old people are forced to be more unmobile because of the changes occur with old ages, the habits of their enviroment and expectations of society from them. This new mode does bad influences to their cognitive, emotional and physical conditions. In this period, activities of all sorts like dancing, sports or walking has a key role in preventing or delaying their losses in many aspects. In the literature, there is difficult to find studies that combine memory performans, short-term and long-term memory, quality of life and dance as a physical activity. To make a more extensive study including these fields, the purpose of this research was to analyse whether dance training as a physical activity has a positive effect on memory performance, self esteem and quality of life of elderly people The study was conducted in a nursing home in the province of İzmir; the woman reached a total of 133 individuals aged 65-85 years. Personal Information Form, Mini Mental State Examination was used as the data collection tools and memory tasks were used to measure the performance of the memory. In the study, a pre-test / post-test / control and experimental design. The results of the analysis indicated that the memory performance, self esteem and quality of life of the elderly who had dance training was higher post-test score than those who did not have dance training. In conclusion, dance training is shown to provide a possitive impact on memory performance, self esteem and quality of life. Keywords: Memory performance, short-termmemory, long-termmemory, self esteem, quality of life, physicalactivity, dance education