The promise of music therapy for Alzheimer's disease: A review

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease associated with cognitive decline. Memory problems are typically among the first signs of cognitive impairment in AD, and they worsen considerably as the disease progresses. However, musical memory is partially spared in patients with AD, despite severe deficits in episodic (and partly semantic) memory. AD patients can learn new songs, encode novel verbal information, and react emotionally to music. These effects of music have encouraged the use and development of music therapy (MT) for AD management. MT is easy to implement and well-tolerated by most patients and their caregivers. Effects of MT in patients with AD include improved mood, reduced depressive scores and trait anxiety, enhanced autobiographical recall, verbal fluency, and cognition. Here, we review musical memory in AD, therapeutic effects of studies using MT on AD, and potential mechanisms underlying those therapeutic effects. We argue that, because AD begins decades before the presentation of clinical symptoms, music interventions might be a promising means to delay and decelerate the neurodegeneration in individuals at risk for AD, such as individuals with genetic risk or subjective cognitive decline.

Current Treatments and New, Tentative Therapies for Parkinson’s Disease

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“…Clements-Cortes et al (2016), in the context of music therapy, studied the potential of 40 Hz sensory brain stimulation in AD and Parkinson's Disease patients. More than 100 reviewed studies as well as the most recent reviews (Leggieri et al, 2019;Matziorinis and Koelsch, 2022) highlight the beneficial effect of music therapy for AD management and the slowdown of neurodegeneration (Matziorinis and Koelsch, 2022). In the same line, a recent meta-analysis (Lai et al, 2020) proposes music therapy as the best treatment for Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI).…”

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