Music Therapy and Dementia Patients

Introduction

Music plays a critical role in human life. Music is played on different occasions and ceremonies. For instance, music is played to welcome a new born baby to the world and can be performed at weddings, burial ceremonies to give excellent send off to the dead. Put it differently, it carries different meanings according to the tone and rhythm of the songs. Music therapy in this context is the use of music to affect physical, social, spiritual, and psychological to people in different situations. In most cases, music is seen as a healing tool for sicknesses and other mental torture experienced by human beings. The soothing sound effects produced by music plays a central role to transform the human into wholeness in the body, spirit, and the soul, for the proper functioning of the body.

Based on its effects on the human body, music therapy is a behavioural science due to the biological processes that take place while music is made. Sound effects and rhythms in music have different roles when it comes to healing of the body, soul, and mind. Calm and soothing music relaxes the brain resulting in mind healing (Gallego, Gómez and Gómez Garcia 302). A healed memory is active and ready for productivity in all day’s activities. Also, playing and listening to music keeps one awake and active, thus, self-realisation. Therefore, music therapy can be applied in the hospital department as a healing tool for patients with different illnesses and psycho-social problems.

On the whole, this paper aims at examining how music can be applied in the treatment of dementia and alleviating its symptoms, the correlation between music therapy and language, giving the beforehand description of dementia and music effects on the human brain.

Effects of Music on the Brain

Music is said to have a positive and forceful impact on the nervous system. When played, music gets into the limbic brain system causing effects to the moods, feelings, and emotions. Listening to music helps in the generation of neuro-hormones critical in behavioural changes from the desired healing (Guess 21). The hormones released while listening to music disrupts the functioning of the brain from its natural activities to a relaxed mood and tune. Neuro-hormones make one happier and productive, resulting in the whole body responding unanimously to the music effects and rhythms.

As discussed earlier, music plays different roles in the human brain. Different sound effects and rhythms from different songs act differently to the human mind. Examples of songs include gospel and country music. To achieve an objective, one ought to go with their taste and preference of songs for the wholeness of the body, mind, and soul. Music therapy improves the health of the brain and human well-being (Gue?tin et al. 41). Music helps in stress and pain reduction, moderates memory loss as well as repairing injured or tortured brains of human beings.

Dementia

Dementia involves a series of diseases affecting brain cells, thus mental breakdown. As a result, memory, thinking capacity, and social abilities are becoming worse over time. Dementia causes a severe decline that can lead to interference in daily life, especially the ability to make judgments and decisions soberly. Besides, communication skills become low, and the person becomes unproductive in society (Gerdner 360). Notably, dementia patients suffer physical and social impairments. This condition affects people across all races and gender at different ages. Dementia is categorised into different types, such as vascular, Alzheimer, Parkinson, and frontotemporal dementia, depending on the symptoms and its effects (Reed 2019). Dementia is an emerging global condition affecting about 36 million people in the world. Statistics show that 4% of people above 60 years suffer dementia. The condition is expected to rise by half by the year 2030.

Dementia symptoms vary progressive and are dependent on their causes, but the main remarkable sign is memory loss. A person suffering from this condition tends to forget easily on critical things. For instance, a dementia patient can be looking for a cell phone, which is in his hand. Others forget on essential items like own names or names of their relatives when asked unexpectedly. Besides, they experience difficulties carrying out complicates tasks; they feel confused and disoriented (Guess 21). They face problems when it comes to planning and organising as well as operating motor vehicles. Also, dementia patients suffer depression, anxiety, paranoia, and hallucinations, which interfere with their day to day activities. Moreover, dementia patients tend to lose track of the steps involved in their daily lives. They are unable to recall information they just learned as well as forgetting why they even exist. They easily get lost, lose track of where they are and how they got there. Dementia patients easily misplace things and are easy to deny misplaced items. Finally, these patients cannot take care of themselves.

Dementia cannot be medically treated, but its symptoms can be relieved. Medical professionals advise on the best preventive measure to manage the condition. Dementia patients are asked to keep their minds active, get sufficient vitamins, and be physically, emotionally, cognitively, and socially active. However, music therapy has been tested and proven to manage some of the behaviours expressed by dementia patients (Holmes et al. 628). Thus, studies indicate that while dementia patients experience memory loss, the sound effects of music remains in their minds. Music can, therefore, improve moods, reduce anxiety, and improve concentration of dementia patients.

However, extreme dementia symptoms can be managed in hospitals by a psychiatrist. In some instances, the patients suffer depression that might result in migraine that requires medication to manage. A health professional knows the best drug to treat and manage the symptoms to prevent adverse effects such as the death of the patients. Also, medical practitioners offer to counsel to the affected parties (Melhuish, Beuzeboc, and Guzman 293). Counselling involves having them accept their condition and take precautionary measures to prevent further spread of the symptoms. Extreme cases can be put in the intensive care unit for proper monitoring to save the lives of the patients affected.

Also, education should be offered by professionals to caregivers and dementia patients in the best living style to save their lives from dementia symptoms. Alzheimer patients should be treated with care due to their memory loss and aggressiveness. They should be educated on what to do, when, and how to do it for a positive outcome. Patients should be given time to express themselves as that is also another process of healing. Caregivers should be advised to speak slowly and respectfully while handling such patients. In addition, they should be reminded to keep the information private to protect the patients from facing stigmatisation in the community. To help dementia patients, caregivers should focus on the feelings and small changes to the behaviour of the patients. All positive signs should be noted down to determine the progress of the patients. 

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