Music Training May Facilitate Memory Function in Alzheimer ’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has long been considered a detrimental form of dementia. With over 35 million individuals globally living with dementia and this number predicted to triple in the next thirty years (World Health Organization, 2012); it is now vital that effective pharmacological treatments help modify the disease and improve individual’s quality of life — as current pharmacological treatments have only been effective in relation to relieving the severity of symptoms.
As a result researchers have looked to investigate whether other non-pharmacological treatments can supplement pharmacological treatments to aid AD sufferers in their battle with the disease.
There is growing amounts of evidence demonstrating that music interventions are effective in treating dementia such as relieving symptoms and eliciting positive physiological effects — whether it be listening, music therapy or musical activities.
Impaired memory is the most common symptom of AD individuals and most research has focused on the effect visual and verbal stimuli has on AD.
However researchers such as Cuddy have investigated the possibility of memory for music which may be accessed differently than visual and verbal stimuli.
For example there are cases of musicians with AD continuing to play their instrument and learning new pieces of music despite their impaired memory due to their disease (Cowles et al, 2003).
This is backed up by evidence that suggests lyrics in a song aid verbal memor...

Source: Psych Central - January 21, 2017 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Joe Husbands Tags: Aging Alzheimer's Caregivers Disabilities Memory and Perception Alzheimer's disease Cognition Dementia Music Therapy Source Type: news