Here's how dementia patients may benefit from music therapy

For the analysis, van der Steen and colleagues pooled data from 21 smaller randomised trials involving a total of 1097 patients

Health News: Music therapy might also improve emotional well-being among those with dementia, researchers found. But they didn’t find any benefits when it came to cognition and behavioural issues such as agitation or aggression, according to the report in the Cochrane Library journal.

Although the benefits of music therapy weren’t large, “small effects are valuable, too, because even a small improvement or maintaining a certain level while otherwise a decline is expected is very important for people with dementia and those caring for them,” said study leader Jenny van der Steen, a researcher with the department of public health and primary care at Leiden University Medical Center.

“These outcomes are closely linked to quality of life and may be more relevant than improving or delaying decline in cognition for the patients under study - mostly nursing home patients,” van der Steen said in an email.

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