Music-Based Therapeutic Interventions for People with Dementia

Summary

A Cochrane review [Abstract] 1 included 30 studies with 17,20 participants that were conducted in 15 countries. 28 studies with 1366 participants contributed data to meta-analyses. 10 studies contributed data to long-term outcomes. Participants had dementia of varying degrees of severity and resided in institutions in most of the studies. 7 studies delivered an individual intervention; the other studies delivered the intervention to groups. Most interventions involved both active and receptive elements of musical experience.

Compared to usual care at the end of treatment, music-based therapeutic interventions may have slightly improved depressive symptoms (SMD −0.23, 95% CI −0.42 to −0.04; 9 studies, n=441) and overall behavioural problems (SMD −0.31, 95% CI −0.60 to −0.02; 10 studies, n=385). Music-based therapeutic interventions may not have improved agitation or aggression (SMD −0.05, 95% CI −0.27 to 0.17; 11 studies, n=503). Music-based therapeutic interventions might have little to no effect on emotional well-being (SMD 0.14, 95% CI −0.29 to 0.56; 4 studies, n=154), anxiety (SMD −0.15, 95% CI −0.39 to 0.09; 7 studies, n=282), social behaviour (SMD 0.22, 95% CI −0.14 to 0.57; 2 studies; n=121) or cognition (SMD 0.19, 95% CI −0.02 to 0.41; 7 studies, n=353), but the evidence is insufficient. Music-based therapeutic interventions might not have been more effective than usual care in the long term (4 weeks or more after the end of treatment) for any of the outcomes, but the evidence is insufficient.