Browsing by Subject "depressive mood"

Objective: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major public health issue leading to long-term cognitive, emotional, and physical impairments. New, effective, multimodal and multidisciplinary rehabilitation practices are needed. Dance is a multimodal activity that engages several brain regions simultaneously and, therefore, might be ideal for enhancing complex functions. Dance also combines physical exercise and the use of music, both of which positively affect healthy and neuropathological populations. The aim of the research project was to develop a multidisciplinary dance rehabilitation method and to evaluate its feasibility and effectiveness in chronic severe TBI. The current study investigates the intervention’s effects on cognition, depressive mood, and health-related quality of life. The feasibility of the intervention is also discussed. Methods: The current study had 11 participants with severe TBI; four women and seven men, 19 – 45 years old, with an average time of 7.6 years from the acquisition of the injury. A two-group crossover design with random allocation was used. The intervention (three months, two weekly sessions) was carried out together by a dance instructor and a physiotherapist. Neuropsychological assessments were conducted at the beginning of the study (t0), and twice after that every three months (t3 and t6). Performance before and after the intervention in general cognition, frontal lobe functions, abstract reasoning, visuo-spatial reasoning, working memory, mood, health-related quality of life, and executive functions were compared with paired sample t-tests. Time and group interactions were studied by repeated measures analyses of variance. Results: Abstract reasoning, health-related quality of life, and most saliently, mood improved significantly during the intervention. Qualitative findings also indicated enhanced mood. One of the participants described being reconnected to emotions for the first time a after the acquisition of the TBI and several other participants expressed positive feelings and experiences during the intervention. Conclusions: The current study suggests that dance rehabilitation may improve mood, abstract reasoning, and quality of life in the chronic state of severe TBI. These results are tentative and more research with larger samples is needed to verify the findings.