Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test the effectiveness of social dance exercise and social support program to improve quality of life (QOL) for older adults in Thailand.

Design/methodology/approach – A quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test research design was used. The participants were 102 older adults selected by systematic sampling technique. Participants were assigned using the matched-pair technique by age, physical fitness test by the Time up and Go test into intervention and control groups of 51 subjects each. Intervention was conducted for 12 weeks, three times weekly, to improve physical, psychosocial and spiritual domains leading to enhanced QOL as measured by the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL–BREF–THAI) assessment parameter. Data on QOL were collected before and after a 12-week training period.

Findings – Most adults were between 70 and 79 years old (67 percent). After program completion, before and after mean QOL scores for the intervention group at 60.15 and 95.82, respectively, were statistically significant with p-valueo0.05. Post-program QOL shown by the intervention group was significantly higher than the control group (p < 0.05).

Originality/value – Application of social dance exercise and social support program is an alternative to traditional methods to improve QOL and maintain functional capacity for older adults.