Regular musical leisure activities can have long-term cognitive, emotional, and social benefits in mild/moderate dementia and could therefore be utilized in dementia care and rehabilitation.

Recent evidence suggests that music-based interventions can be beneficial in maintaining cognitive, emotional, and social functioning in persons with dementia (PWDs). Our aim was to determine how clinical, demographic, and musical background factors influence the cognitive and emotional efficacy of caregiver-implemented musical activities in PWDs. In a randomized controlled trial, 89 PWD-caregiver dyads received a 10-week music coaching intervention involving either singing or music listening or standard care. Extensive neuropsychological testing and mood and quality of life (QoL) measures were performed before and after the intervention (n = 84) and six months later (n = 74). The potential effects of six key background variables (dementia etiology and severity, age, care situation, singing/instrument playing background) on the outcome of the intervention were assessed. Singing was beneficial especially in improving working memory in PWDs with mild dementia and in maintaining executive function and orientation in younger PWDs. Music listening was beneficial in supporting general cognition, working memory, and QoL especially in PWDs with moderate dementia not caused by Alzheimer's disease (AD) who were in institutional care. Both music interventions alleviated depression especially in PWDs with mild dementia and AD. The musical background of the PWD did not influence the efficacy of the music interventions. Our findings suggest that clinical and demographic factors can influence the cognitive and emotional efficacy of caregiver-implemented musical activities and are, therefore, recommended to take into account when applying and developing the intervention to achieve the greatest benefit.

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Music has an important meaning in the lives of many elderly persons. Its capacity to evoke emotions and influence mood and arousal is often relatively well preserved also in dementia. Neuroscientific and clinical research has increased our understanding about the mechanisms underlying music enjoyment and its therapeutic effects. This article reviews previous studies that address the neural basis of music cognition and emotion. We also introduce the effects of varying music interventions on emotional and cognitive functioning in dementia. Findings suggest that both traditional music therapy and caregiver-implemented music activities may have the capacity to reduce emotional and behavioral disturbances in dementia, although firm conclusions about the longterm effects of music still remain elusive. The rapid growth of dementia warrants study in the rehabilitative effects of everyday musical leisure activities or hobbies, such as music listening and singing, on well-being in dementia, especially in its early stages.The general world population is aging rapidly. Inevitably, the number of elderly persons with dementia (PWD) will also be increasing even more in the future. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that the prevalence of Alzheimer disease (AD) and other dementias was 24.2 million people in 2004. 1 In 2010, an estimated 35.6 million people worldwide were living with dementia, and this number was estimated to nearly double every 20 years, to 65.7 million in 2030 and 115.4 million in 2050. 2 The direct and indirect costs of dementia to the society are also massive, totaling around 604 billion USD in 2010. 3 Thus, we can already speak of a true dementia epidemic that will present an enormous challenge to the society and to the health care system, which in many countries is already struggling to provide adequate services for the rapidly aging population.Globally, family caregivers are at the cornerstone of support for most PWDs. It has been estimated that approximately 73% of PWDs in developed countries live at home and are cared for by their family members, primarily retired spouses. 3 The exponential growth of dementia and the enormous cost of its institutional care will greatly increase the need for more outpatient and family care in the future. However, the role of the family caregiver is often demanding, and caregivers typically experience substantial burden and psychological distress as well as economic hardship. 4 Nurses who work with PWDs in long-term care institutions are often under considerable strain in their work, usually brought about by difficulties in coping with the severe neuropsychiatric and cognitive symptoms and agitated behavior of the patients. 5,6 Even as numerous drug treatments have been developed to slow the progression of AD symptoms, it is currently unlikely that any single medical cure for AD will be found, 7 thus emphasizing the need for more effective nonpharmacological treatments. According to a recent systematic review, many efficacious nonpharmacological interventions, s...

Singing is a universal activity, but many people believe that they are non-singers, or tone deaf, which may be interpreted as a singing disability. Singing is often seen as an on-off phenomenon: either you can sing or cannot. Music education contains practices which emphasize innate abilities instead of broader views offered in modern learning theories. We present the learning results of ten adult non-singers who were taught to sing in an intervention study using a socio-culturally oriented student-activating and process-oriented framework. Because of their negative singing experiences in childhood, all of the participants suffered from serious emotional and belief system blocks when starting the project. Most of them also had grave perceptual problems while singing as well as production blocks, e.g. a narrow voice range. In the relatively short intervention, the participants made remarkable singing progress. Further, the participants started to enjoy singing and to see themselves as people who sing. In the Karma musicality test, the participants received mostly average or high scores. The study shows that singing is a multifaceted, deeply culturally rooted phenomenon, and problems in singing are not to be reduced to individual bases. Correspondingly, music education should be developed according to recent learning studies.