The Transformative Power of Music Therapy for Dementia Patients

Music is a big part of everyday life. From listening to a favorite song on your way to work, to singing holiday songs with friends and family, music can lift your spirits and calm your soul.

Music is such a powerful medium that it is no wonder that it is being used in medical treatments, according to The Conversation. Music has been used to manage pain and helping patients recover from a stroke. Now people are looking at using music to help dementia patients who have severe memory loss.

What music does to your brain
The interest in how music affects the brain began over a decade ago when researchers discovered that multiple areas of the brain were engaged when people listened to music. These included the limbic, the area that processes emotions and memory, the cognitive, the area which controls learning and perception, as well as motor areas that are responsible for movement.

The research that was published in the journal  NeuroImage also found that music could help to regenerate the brain and neural connections. Since most forms of dementia center around the death of brain cells, this made scientists question whether music could help people with dementia mend damaged cells and connections, according to The Conversation.

Later research from Oxford Academic found that the parts of the brain that contain musical memories are less affected than other areas. This could explain why  memories that are linked to favorite music are preserved in dementia patients. Music has also been found to reduce agitation and gives a vehicle for self-expression when language fails, according to mindbodygreen.

“Music is arousing the parts of the brain that are either deteriorating slower or still healthy. Things like sense memory, motor memory, that are deeper than conscious memory,” Kristen Stewart, M.A., LCAT, MT-BC, assistant director of the Louis Armstrong department of music therapy at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital, told mindbodygreen.

The benefits of music therapy
That’s where music therapy comes in. This type of therapy is used by trained professionals and provides a music-based intervention that is personally tailored to the patient’s needs. It can be used for stress reduction, self-expression, and to improve memory. It has been used in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia to cue memories of places, people and events, as well as to help with language skills.

A systematic review of studies looked at the use of music therapy with patients with Alzheimer’s and found that music could improve cognitive function. That’s because music engages several areas of the brain so it can tap into cells that were not damaged by the disease.

Stewart spoke about using music therapy with a patient who looks at his high school yearbook while she plays the music that was popular during his teens and 20s, according to mindbodygreen. She asks her patient about his experiences with music and what was popular when he was young.

“We deepen the memories through songs associated with that era. The stories will come connected to that musical memory,” Stewart told mindbodygreen. She explained that these are the types of long-term memories that are easier for dementia patients to recall.

Language skills can also benefit from  music therapy, even for people who can no longer sing. But music therapy cannot stop the loss of language. What it can do is offer patients and alternative form of expression.

And while music therapy cannot stop the cognitive decline that is prevalent in late-stage dementia, it can help reduce agitation and disruptive behavior.

While dementia is a progressive disease that takes people’s memories, cognition, and language skills, music therapy – when used with other management techniques –  can provide a valuable way to offer connections and meaning in the lives of patients and their caregivers.