Annotated Bibliography on Interventions for Dementia Patients

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Student Name: (Your name here)
Essay/Report title: Assessment Item 1: Annotated Bibliography
Word count: (1018) (excluding title page and reference list).
(Your student number)

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Article 1
Ridder, H. M. O., Stige, B., Qvale, L. G., & Gold, C. (2013). Individual music therapy for
agitation in dementia: an exploratory randomized controlled trial. Aging & mental
health, 17(6), 667-678. https://doi.org/10.1080/13607863.2013.790926
Annotation
In this research, Ridder, Stige, Qvale and Gold (2013) reported on a study that was
conducted with the aim of examining the effects of individual music therapy on symptoms
related to agitation, in person suffering from moderate to severe dementia, at nursing homes.
The authors elaborated on the fact that agitation develops in the later stages of dementia and
is one of the most noteworthy symptoms that lead to subsequent distress among the patients
and increases the burden on the caregivers as well. Although antipsychotics have long been
considered the mainstay treatment for agitation symptoms, the authors argued that these
drugs have restricted benefits in the long-term. The trial recruited 42 patients and randomised
them to a series of individual music therapy and standard care sessions, each for six weeks.
The trial found that disruptiveness of agitation symptoms got elevated during the standard
care sessions. On the other hand, the individual music therapy sessions were able to reduce
agitation among the patients significantly. The difference was around −6.77 (95% CI: −12.71,
−0.83, p=0.027). Furthermore, psychotropic medication prescription increased significantly
during standard care, compared to the intervention therapy (p=0.02). These findings support
the effectiveness of individual music therapy sessions in reducing agitation that commonly
occurs among dementia patients. Non-blinding the respondents and interviewers were
accredited by the authors as one major study limitation. Moreover, inadequate demographic,
medical and diagnostic data might have also contributed to bias in the results. Ridder, Stige,
Qvale and Gold (2013) also specified that failure to establish music therapy sessions in most
nursing homes might have prevented improvements in the patients. Thus, the authors were
successful in recommending music therapy as a valid treatment method for agitation in
dementia and also identified it as an effective measure to reduce the use of psychotropic
medications. Nursing professionals, healthcare staff and the relatives of patients with
dementia must have a sound understanding of their role in deriving patient gains from the
therapy session and enhancing their quality of life. Future recommendations include focusing
on documenting the impact of music therapy as an integrated method, based on
multidisciplinary collaboration.
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Abstract
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