Benefits: How can ballroom dance maintain/improve my brain and memory functions?

Dance requires mental coordination. Music stimulates the brain's reward centers while dance activates its sensory and motor circuits. Memory improvements to stronger neuronal connections. 

A 2003 study in the New England Journal of Medicine be researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine discovered that dance can decidedly improve brain health. The study investigated the effect leisure activities had on the risk of dementia in the elderly. The researchers looked at the effects of 11 different types of physical activity, including cycling, golf, swimming, and tennis but found that only one of the activities studied-dance-lowered participants' risk of dementia.

*Article Dancing and the Brain published by Harvard Mahoney Neuroscience Institute

Physicians are recommending dance therapy for some patients with Parkinsons