Benefits of Music Therapy on Dementia Patients

“Benefits of music therapy on Dementia patients- A critical
Literature review”
Student Name:
Student Number:
1

Contents
 INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................4
 METHODS.....................................................................................................................................7
Criteria for inclusion and exclusion of the studies...................................................................................7
Strategy used to search............................................................................................................................7
 RESULTS.......................................................................................................................................8
Results obtained after search...................................................................................................................8
Use of different music interventions in various studies...........................................................................8
 DISCUSSION..............................................................................................................................10
 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS..........................................................................13
 REFERENCE...............................................................................................................................15
2

ABSTRACT
Aim: To answer the research question: How is music therapy beneficial in treating the patients
suffering from dementia.
Rationale: The purpose of this review is to compare various music interventions used for the
treatment of dementia patient and to come up with an answer which kind of approach leads to the
most satisfactory results. Also which part of the population would be benefitted by this?
Background: Dementia is an age related disease that causes such a memory loss that a person is
not able to perform general routine task. It hits the population of 65 and above years of age.
Globally around 50 million people are suffering from this disease.
Method: The electronic databases used were MEDLINE and Pubmed, All the abstracts from the
search results were properly read and then sorted on the basis of inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Results: Six of the studies were selected for the review which met the inclusion and exclusion
criteria properly.
3

INTRODUCTION
Dementia is an age related condition which leads to impairment of basic daily activities in
individuals with 65 and above years of age. It has engulfed about 50 million people all over the
world. It has been reported that these number will keep on doubling by every twenty years of
period which means the number will rise to about 135 million by 2050 (Moreira, Justi &
Moreira, 2018). There are majorly four types of dementia namely, Alzheimer’s disease, Vascular
dementia, Frontotemporal dementia and Dementia with Lewy Bodies. Among its four types the
most common one is the Alzheimer’s disease. Dementia is one such disease that requires big
amount of care as the dependency that comes with the disease is really very high. Patients suffer
with lots of inabilities and difficulties like not able to memorize things, emotional instability,
depression, getting agitated etc (Leggieri et al., 2019). There are many pharmacological
interventions that have been reported by different research groups but they have shown to have
very modest effects on the overall condition of the patient. Therefore music therapy interventions
have been adopted by large number of medical practitioners and care givers as it is a less harmful
and a non-pharmacological approach for curing this disease. It has also been reported that
employing music therapy results in a positive change in overall quality of life by processing
speed, memory, and making things a bit easier for patients.
Musical memory is said to be non-effected in the patients which makes it a better target to be
used in the process of treatment (Leggieri et al., 2019). Since music can be very easily accessed
and it is also very versatile, so it can be used in many different ways in a variety of patient
Population. According a report by Raglio and Oasi in 2015 there were three ways of employing
music for the treatment of dementia patients, those were, music therapy, listening to music and
other music interventions. The definition of music therapy as given by the Canadian Association
of Music Therapists (2016) is “a discipline in which credentialed professionals use music
purposefully within therapeutic relationships to support development, health, and well-being.”
Music therapy can be done in two ways, one is the active music technique which involves
dancing, singing or clapping along or any improvisations of music whereas the second type is
4