Music therapy for people with schizophrenia and schizophrenia-like disorders

Abstract

Music therapy as an addition to standard care helps people with schizophrenia to improve their global state, mental state (including negative symptoms) and social functioning if a sufficient number of music therapy sessions are provided by qualified music therapists. Further research should especially address the long-term effects of music therapy, dose-response relationships, as well as the relevance of outcomes measures in relation to music therapy.

Impaired musical ability in people with schizophrenia

“…22,[51][52][53] Metaanalysis showed that participation in music therapy (7-78 sessions at a frequency of 1-6 sessions per wk for 1-4 mo) resulted in an improvement in negative symptoms, general mental state and some aspects of cognitive function in patients with schizophrenia. 54 The association between improvement in symptoms, cognition and possibly in musical ability is not clear. 55 Of interest, poststroke studies of indivdiuals with acquired amusia have shown that improvement of verbal memory, attention and executive function was correlated with musical recovery.…”

Current status of music therapy for schizophrenic patients

“…These four studies showed that treatments utilized music therapy combined with standard procedures improved negative symptoms and social functioning more effectively, than treatments utilizing only standard procedures. Mössler et al [8] published an updated Cochrane review focusing on music therapy for people with schizophrenia. They reviewed 85 papers including papers that had been reviewed by Gold et al [7], and recognized eight reliable studies.…”

Update: Negativsymptome. Psychopathologie, Epidemiologie, Pathophysiologie und Behandlungsoptionen.

“…[91]. D aneben gibt es interessante Ansätze zur V erbesserung von Negativsymptomen durch Musik-und Kunsttherapie [92][93][94], wobei hier sicherlich weitere Untersuchungen erforderlich sind.…”