Music Therapy And Dementi - 1763 Words

Music Therapy and Dementia Debora Moran Norwalk Community College MUSIC THERAPY AND DEMENTIA 2 Music is powerful. It arouses feelings and memories of specific past events and such a wide array of emotions. Music is associated with emotion and events in people’s lives that can be remembered long after the event occurred. Therapists can use music therapy to improve the overall physical and mental well-being of dementia patients including memory recall, positive mood change, non-pharmacological management of pain, and management of agitation. Music can change moods manage stress-induced agitation and improve overall quality of life for patients with dementia. This happens because rhythmic and other well-rehearsed responses require little to no cognitive or mental processing. They are influenced by the motor center of the brain that responds directly to auditory rhythmic cues. A person’s ability to engage in music, particularly rhythm playing and singing, remains intact late into the disease process because, again, these activities do not mandate cognitive funct ioning for success. (Clair, 2015) Music therapy is used for a wide range of psychological and physical conditions. It is defined as a therapeutic medium to address development adaptive and rehabilitative goals in the areas of psychosocial, cognitive, and sensorimotor behavior of individuals with disabilities.