Neurodegenerative disorders may be irreversible medically. However, a psychological approach may help maintain good mental health for the patient. The kind of therapeutic approach for this care may involve music therapy or no music therapy. The responses in both situations can be analyzed and the preferred method chosen.
Research done by some scholars looked at the effect of music therapy in treating Alzheimer's disease. The study aimed to provide evident results on music therapy's impact on patients' cognitive and behavioral symptoms with this condition. The researchers looked at the type of music that was effective and the extent to which the effect was seen (Leggieri et al., 2019). A similar study was done by a different set of scholars who focused on music's impact on dementia (Pedersen et al., 2017). This study focused on the effect of music intervention on managing the agitation effect in dementia. These studies reported that music therapy had a significant impact on treating both Alzheimer's diseases and dementia.
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A nurse's role is to take care of the patient and help them recover from the conditions they are suffering from. The two studies on using music therapy to manage symptoms of neurodegenerative disorders in patients focus on improving the patient's condition using non-pharmacological approaches. The first article looks at the different type of music that can be used for therapy in patients with Alzheimer's disorder (Leggieri et al., 2019), while the second one looks at the effect that music therapy has on the management of agitation in patients with dementia (Pedersen et al., 2017). These two studies focus on using music therapy to treat Alzheimer's disease and dementia, a condition that might result from Alzheimer's. The studies are in line with the PICOT question, “In older adults with Alzheimer’s, is music therapy or no music therapy effective in lowering agitation?”
Both pieces of research were retrospective. The first research looked at the records of patients with Alzheimer's disease dementia, who had been managed using music therapy over the past ten years. It compared the agitation level results before and after treatment for all the records (Laggieri et al., 2019). The second used a meta-analysis approach. The researchers looked at twelve studies that met the criteria for patients that had dementia and had used music therapy to manage agitation (Pedersen et al., 2017). The results for the different studies were compared, and a conclusion was made. The first study looked at the patients' records of patients who had Alzheimer's disease dementia and used music therapy to manage agitation, while the second study analyzed already done studies that were similar to the first. Using an already researched study is easier since the data is readily available. However, the results of these studies may be biased to the researcher's interest. Conducting personal research from the patients' record would be advisable since the data used is first hand and reliable, despite taking much time to complete the study.
Both studies found that the effect of music therapy was best when individualized music regimens were used. However, where there was no individualization of the regimen, the results were still positive, but the effect was not significant. These studies imply that using music therapy for Alzheimer's diseases and dementia improves symptoms like agitation. Hence, it would be commendable to include music therapy for patient care in Alzheimer's disease and dementia.
Ethical considerations that should be considered in this research are keeping the patient's information confidential and assuming multiple therapy roles. These two studies respected the research ethics by not mentioning the patient names in the report. Besides, the research also notes other factors that play a part in managing symptoms in Alzheimer's disease and dementia.
References
Leggieri, M., Thaut, M. H., Fornazzari, L., Schweizer, T. A., Barfett, J., Munoz, D. G., & Fischer, C. E. (2019). Music intervention approaches for Alzheimer's disease: a review of the literature. Frontiers in Neuroscience , 13 , 132.
Pedersen, S. K., Andersen, P. N., Lugo, R. G., Andreassen, M., & Sütterlin, S. (2017). Effects of music on agitation in dementia: a meta-analysis. Frontiers in psychology , 8 , 742.
