Treatment Efficacy of Working Memory Plus Melodic Intonation Therapy for People with Dementia of Alzheimer’s Type

Abstract

Objectives: This research aimed at examining the effectiveness of the working memory (WM) intervention using melodies by comparing two groups of elderly subjects with Dementia of Alzheimer’s Type (DAT).Methods: A total of 10 patients with DAT (Global Deterioration Scale degree 6) were divided into a WM+MIT (melodic intonation therapy) group (n= 5) and a WM ONLY group (n= 5). The WM intervention consisted of 12 sessions, twice a week, for 20 minutes per day. The protocol consisted of 10 steps. At each step, the WM+MIT group was treated using melodies. The melody was developed as an MIT that takes into account the characteristics of Korean language based on shared syntactic integration resource hypothesis (SSIRH). However, the WM ONLY group was treated without applying the melodies.Results: The results revealed first that there were no significant differences in the pre- and post- performance levels between the two groups for the tasks; both for those with interventions and those for which interventions were not used. Secondly, the differences between pre- and post-performance assessments of the tasks that have interventions were found to be statistically significant within the WM+MIT and the WM ONLY group. The results of the pre- and post- assessments of the tasks that did not have interventions were not statistically significant.Conclusion: Although the results of the pre- and post- assessments of tasks that did not have interventions were not statistically significant, the performances of both groups improved in the post-assessments in general, proving the efficacy of the intervention.