May 15, 2017.
Music therapy would work wonders for patients with Alzheimer’s disease. This is what a study published on the website of theAmerican Journal of Geriatrics Psychiatry.
Music has no real impact on mood
Accompanying illness with music is a therapeutic method that has been around for years. It would be particularly effective with patients with Alzheimer’s disease. In any case, this is revealed by a team of researchers from Brown University, in the United States, in a study. According to this work, music would push these patients to limit their medication.
To reach this conclusion, the researchers followed older people who followed a personalized music program called “Music & Memory”. They thus sought to understand whether music had an influence on stopping antipsychotic or anti-anxiety treatment, on the reduction of disruptive behavior, or on the improvement of mood.
More likely to stop their antipsychotics and anxiolytics
This observation enabled them to observe that the music did not have a significant impact on the mood of the patients. In contrast, patients with Alzheimer’s who resided in retirement homes that had implemented this music therapy program were more inclined to limit the intake of their antipsychotics and anxiolytics. Which made their daily life much more pleasant.
Indeed, without these drugs, the patients suffered less from behavioral problems, which facilitated the daily life of the other residents but also of the nursing staff. ” These findings are a first step in understanding the improvements that can be attributed to this program. », Rejoiced the authors of this work. Work which will however have to be supplemented by new studies.
Marine Rondot
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