fbpx

How Music Can Ease the Agitation of Alzheimer’s

January 15, 2025

Music can be an easy and inexpensive way to lower stress and ease agitation in people with advanced Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new report. The findings add to growing evidence that music can play an important role in dementia care.

For the study, researchers in Britain reviewed medical studies exploring the effects of music on people with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. The researchers also surveyed health care professionals and dementia specialists on the role of music in dementia care and interviewed staff and music therapists working in memory care centers. Music therapists are trained to identify specific ways that music, including singing, playing instruments or listening to songs, can improve care.

The research found that music therapy, targeted to the individual’s needs, can provide an immediate, short-term reduction in agitation and anxiety for people with advanced dementia. As Alzheimer’s progresses, worrisome behaviors such as agitation, aggression, wandering, and resistance to care become increasingly common. Music can help to reduce these troublesome behaviors, making care easier, the researchers found. Songs from when the person was between 10 and 30 years of age were found to be most effective.

Experts say that music is a way of communicating with patients even in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Many people with severe Alzheimer’s cannot understand spoken language well, but they can respond to a familiar melody or song from their past. Listening to favorite music can help people with dementia focus and tune out outside stimuli that may be unfamiliar or upsetting. The pleasant feelings and memories elicited by the music can in turn help ease the agitation so common in people with Alzheimer’s disease.

Individualized music therapy can also lead to improvements in attention, make people with dementia more engaged with their surroundings and those around them, and boost alertness and mood. By helping people feel safer and calmer, music can spur social interactions and lower levels of distress.

Music can have benefits for caregivers as well. By improving patient well-being, it can make care less difficult and stressful. Listening to music together, singing, or playing a musical instrument also provides innovative, empathy-building ways for caregivers and those with Alzheimer’s to interact.

“Our study not only shows why music therapy is successful – including meeting the person’s need for stimulation, supporting familiarity through memories, encouraging relationship and emotional expression, and crucially helping with the reduction of distress and anxiety – it also paves the way for its wider use in dementia care,” said Naomi Thompson, the study’s lead author and a researcher at Anglia Ruskin University’s Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research.

“Music, in particular recorded music, is an accessible way for staff and families to help manage distress, and music therapists can advise on tailoring music for individuals,” Dr. Thompson continued. “Just as a doctor prescribes medications with a specific dose and frequency, a music therapist can outline an individualized program, setting out how music should be used throughout someone’s day to reduce distress and improve their wellbeing.” The findings were published in the journal Nature Mental Health.

The authors encourage families to use music to support loved ones with Alzheimer’s disease. Musical instruments should be made available when accessible, and family members should be counseled on how to curate personalized playlists, tailored to the patient’s childhood or young adult years.

Many senior care centers and Alzheimer’s support groups hold music and sing-along sessions in communities nationwide. And for those that don’t, integrating a music program into a community center, nursing home or your own home may be an invaluable addition to caring for anyone with Alzheimer’s disease.

Tips for including music in the care for a person with Alzheimer’s include:

  • Choose music to set the mood you’re hoping to create. Quiet music may be suitable before bedtime, whereas soft but upbeat tunes may be appropriate for a special birthday celebration.
  • Avoid music that may be too loud or interrupted by noisy commercials. Too much stimulation can cause confusion and agitation. Turn off the TV if music is playing to avoid overstimulation.
  • Encourage those with Alzheimer’s to clap or sing along or play a musical instrument. Supplement music with fond reminiscences and looking at family photos.

By ALZinfo.org, The Alzheimer’s Information Site. Reviewed by Eric Schmidt, Ph.D. Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation at The Rockefeller University. 

Source: Naomi Thompson, Helen Odell-Miller, Benjamin R. Underwood, et al: “How and why music therapy reduces distress and improves well-being in advanced dementia care: a realist review.” Nature Mental Health, November 14, 2024

Share

Alzheimer's Articles

ALL ARTICLES