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- Music can trigger emotions, something that may promote the creation of new neurons in the brain and help improve memory and mood in people with dementia. Music activates the brain’s reward system and releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter that may help reduce age-related cognitive and motor function decline.
www.healthline.com/health/dementia/music-for-dementiaYour Guide to Music Therapy for Dementia Treatment - Healthline
Music therapy is used as a treatment for the improvement of cognitive function in people with dementia. The intervention based on listening to music presents the greatest effect on patients with dementia followed by singing.
- Music Therapy in the Treatment of Dementia: A Review Article
Dementia can be cured by music therapy and music-based...
- Music Therapy in the Treatment of Dementia: A Review Article
Dementia can be cured by music therapy and music-based intervention (nonpharmacological intervention) rather than by medication. This study highlights dementia therapy utilizing the music therapy method.
Numerous previous studies have shown the effectiveness of music therapy in enhancing cognitive functions in patients with dementia. Despite this, robust evidence in this field, especially concerning the comparison of different music therapy types, ...
Nov 14, 2024 · A Cochrane review of music-based interventions for people with dementia reported moderate-quality evidence for reduction in depression and behavioral symptoms of dementia, and low-quality...
- Overview
- Music therapy: A non-pharmacological intervention for dementia
- How music therapy benefits people with dementia and their caregivers
- Study limitations and areas for continued research
•People with dementia may experience difficulty with memory and communication.
•Music is one form of therapy that can be helpful for people with dementia.
•A new study shows that music therapy interventions may improve social interactions between people with dementia and their caregivers.
•The findings indicate that music therapy may also decrease caregiver distress.
Dementia is a broad category of disorders that impact a person’s ability to remember, reason, and communicate with others. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describes dementia as an umbrella term for several disorders that impact memory, thinking, and decision-making.
Dementia is often progressive, and it can become harder for people with dementia to communicate and interact with those around them.
Medications and lifestyle interventions may help individuals with dementia manage their symptoms.
Recent research is also focusing on non-pharmacological interventions like music therapy that can benefit people with dementia.
Music therapy involves using music to help improve mood and promote well-being. And research is ongoing about the overall impact of music therapy on people with dementia.
Music therapist Scott Horowitz, LPC, a licensed professional counselorand clinical assistant professor in the College of Nursing and Health Professions at Drexel University, not involved in the study, explained to MNT:
“Our sensory experiences as human beings are connected with our memories. For people with dementia or other cognitive impairments, often those associations remain even if other elements of their memory are impaired and impacted. You could play a piece of music that holds meaning to them — and that memory is going to be triggered.”
– Scott Horowitz, LPC, clinical assistant professor at Drexel University
This present study examined how music therapy could help both people with dementia and their caregivers.
The study recruited individuals with dementia from two memory care facilities. The interventions also involved active participation from caregivers.
Researchers utilized a 12-week intervention called musical bridges to memory (MBM). The intervention included an assessment of musical preferences among people with dementia and baseline assessment data like sociable behaviors and dementia severity.
Horowitz explained that taking into account personal preferences is a critical component of music therapy:
“The most impactful music is the client-preferred music. There’s also a lot of subjectivity to how we experience music. So the music that one person finds relaxing might actually be activating to another person — their memories are attached to the music that they’ve experienced.
The intervention included training for caregivers, live 45-minute concerts, and breakout sessions following the concerts. Music therapists encouraged interaction during the concerts and facilitated follow-up in the breakout sessions. Researchers then conducted follow-up assessments using a neuropsychiatric symptoms questionnaire, evaluating behaviors, and getting feedback from caregivers.
The study provides evidence that music intervention is helpful to both people with dementia and their caregivers. However, the study also had several limitations.
For example, the study couldn’t be a blind study or have randomized participants. However, having a control group was helpful in evaluating the results. The control group was only from one of the two memory care facilities, which may have impacted the results.
The study only lasted 12 weeks, so the long-term effects of the intervention were not evaluated. The sample size was fairly small, so more data is needed before experts can make generalizations.
Study authors note that evaluation scales more specific to musical bridges to memory may be helpful in future research. They also point out that participants with dementia did not have high levels of unsociable behaviors like aggression at baseline. Finally, their study did not assess the success of the intervention based on the cause of the participants’ dementia.
Still, Dr. Bonakdapour was enthusiastic about continuing research in this area. He laid out the following steps in the research:
“At this point, we have a 3-year grant through the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to replicate our results in a larger group of patients. We also need to show look into some physiologic measures to confirm that this effect has biological (and not only psychological) effects on patients and caregivers.”
May 17, 2023 · According to the review, some studies found that music therapy may help improve memory, cognition, daily functioning, and quality of life in people with dementia. But the biggest...
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Jan 25, 2022 · Evidence from meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials [1,2] suggests that music-based therapeutic interventions in dementia can reduce depressive symptoms and ameliorate behavioural disturbance and may also reduce anxiety and improve emotional well-being and quality of life.
