Background
The ratio of the elderly to the total population of Japan is the highest in the world (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2017). Cultural dance (hula) is popular for elegance among the elderly in Japan. It seems that hula will be useful for promoting health because of familiarity and continuity. The purpose of this review is to clarify the effect of hula on health.
Methods
An integrative review method was used to analyze the findings. A search of electronic databases was undertaken using MEDLINE, CINAHL. The search words included ‘Hawaiian dance’, ‘hula’.
Results
Twenty-one were found, and six studies met the inclusion criteria. Most of the studies suggested that hula is effective for cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention (Look et al, 2012, Kaholokula et al, 2017), especially for reducing in the systolic blood pressure (Kaholokula et al, 2017) and metabolic equivalents (Usagawa et al, 2013). Other effects included improvements in spiritual well-being (Look et al, 2014, Maskarinec, 2015).
Conclusions
The findings demonstrated that hula is effective in reducing the risk of CVD. It is expected that hula has a positive impact on not only CVD, but also positive psychological effects.