A 12-month pilot randomized controlled trial enrolling 68 adults with prodromal Alzheimer's disease or amnestic mild cognitive impairment found that Partnered Rhythmic Rehabilitation (PRR) — an adapted dance-based intervention targeting motor, cognitive, and social domains simultaneously — met prespecified feasibility and safety thresholds. Attrition in the PRR arm reached 15.2%, just clearing the ≤15% benchmark, and zero injurious falls occurred during supervised sessions. While the primary outcome (Four-Square Step Test) showed no significant group-by-time interaction, PRR produced statistically significant improvements over group walking in Timed Up-and-Go (p=.021) and standing board jump distance (p=.014).
The findings carry meaningful implications for dementia prevention research. Functional mobility deficits — particularly slowed gait and impaired dynamic balance — are increasingly recognized as early biomarkers of cognitive decline and fall-related mortality risk in older adults. That PRR outperformed structured walking on TUG and explosive lower-body power suggests the multimodal engagement of rhythm, partnered coordination, and social interaction may recruit neural pathways that simple aerobic exercise cannot. This aligns with prior work showing tango and other partnered dance modalities benefit gait automaticity and dual-task performance in Parkinson's disease populations.
Critical caveats apply: the sample size is small, COVID-19 protocol modifications introduced confounds, and the primary endpoint was not met. As a preprint not yet peer-reviewed, these results remain preliminary and subject to revision. This is best read as hypothesis-generating — identifying TUG and jump distance as superior outcome measures for a fully powered definitive trial rather than establishing clinical efficacy.
