Does music therapy affect the global cognitive function of patients with dementia? A meta-analysis

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Bian, Xiaoyi^{a; 1} | Wang, Yuanli^{b; 1} | Zhao, Xiaohu^b | Zhang, Zhihua^{c; *} | Ding, Chengbiao^{d; e; *}

Affiliations: [a] Art teaching and research department, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, Anhui, China | [b] Anhui Medical University, Second clinical medical college, Hefei, Anhui, China | [c] Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, China | [d] Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The Second Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, China | [e] College of Nuclear Science and Technology, University of science and technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China

Correspondence: [*] Address for correspondence: Zhihua Zhang (E-mail: zhangzh@ahmu.edu.cn) and Chengbiao Ding (E-mail: dingchengbiao@ahmu.edu.cn).

Note: [1] The first two authors contributed equally to this paper.

Abstract: BACKGROUND:Studies have shown that music therapy can improve a variety of symptoms of patients with dementia. The impact of music therapy on the global cognition of patients with dementia is controversial now. OBJECTIVE:To explore whether music therapy has an effect on the global cognitive function of patients with dementia. METHODS:PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Google Academy and National Knowledge Infrastructure were systematically searched to collect all literature studies published since the establishment of the database until November 2020. All randomized controlled trials that met the criteria of music therapy in the intervention group and standard care in the control group with outcome measures of Mini-mental State Examination (MMSE) were included. Analysis was performed using Stata 16.0. RESULTS:The results showed that compared with the control group, the MMSE score in the music therapy group was generally higher (MD = 0.86, 95% CI: 0.07–1.66, P = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS:The result of this study differs from those of previous relevant meta-analyses, suggesting that music therapy is likely to improve the global cognitive function of patients with dementia, but more rigorous clinical trials are still needed to provide more sufficient and real evidence.

Keywords: Music therapy, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, cognitive function, meta-analysis

DOI: 10.3233/NRE-210018

Journal: NeuroRehabilitation, vol. 48, no. 4, pp. 553-562, 2021