Salivary Testosterone and Cortisol Levels in Tunisian Elderly Male Patients With Mild Alzheimer’s Disease. Implications of Musical Therapy And/Or Physical Rehabilitation

Abstract

Changes in salivary testosterone (T) and cortisol (C) levels were assessed in elderly Tunisian male patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease (AD) subjected to music therapy and/or physical rehabilitation. Male patients with mild AD (N = 26; age = 76.23 ± 4.27 years; weight: 74.76 ± 5.36 kg) were randomly assigned into four groups for three 60-min sessions per week for 4 months; including Group1 or control group (Co) (n = 6); Group2 (n = 6), participated in physical rehabilitation (PR); Group3 (n = 7), subjected to music therapy (MT) and Group4 (n = 7), participated simultaneously in music therapy and physical rehabilitation (MT + PR). Salivary T levels increased (ηp2 = 0.7) and C levels decreased (ηp2 = 0.69), significantly (p < 0.001) in the PR, MT and MT + PR groups compared to the Co group respectively. Also, increases in salivary T levels and decreases in C levels in MT + PR group were greater compared to the other groups. MT increased T levels (p < 0.001) and decreased C levels (p < 0.05) to a greater extent than the PR group respectively. Changes in salivary T levels were positively (r = 0.83; p < 0.001) and C levels were negatively (r = -0.86; p < 0.001) correlated in the PR, MT and MT + PR groups with changes in MMSE in AD patients. This study highlights that combination of MT and PR holds potential to treat AD.

Early Benefits with Potential Long-Term Risks of a Comprehensive Intervention on Serum Cortisol Levels and Cognitive Performance in Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease

“…Considering this perspective, in recent years, nonpharmacological interventions aimed at alleviating chronic stress parameters in AD have been assessed with promising achievements [27][28][29]. The approach employed in our study follows this trend.…”

Treatments and regulatory mechanisms of acoustic stimuli on mood disorders and neurological diseases

“…Furthermore, cortisol plays a significant role in a variety of mental and neurodegenerative disorders, such as depression, chronic stress, PTSD, fatigue syndromes, dementia and AD (Cheour et al, 2022;Rasing et al, 2022;García-González et al, 2023;Patel et al, 2024). These mental disorders are often profoundly associated with abnormally elevated levels of cortisol, which can severely damage physiological and mental health if maintained over a long period (Patel et al, 2024).…”