Play That Old Time Rock & Roll: The Benefits of Personalized Music for Nursing Home Residents with Dementia

Indianapolis, IN

We assessed how listening to personalized music playlists affects sundowning symptoms of older adult nursing home residents with dementia. Sundowning is the tendency of older adults with dementia to show worsening symptoms as the day progresses. A total of 29 participants were included in the study, ranging in age from 69 to 101. At baseline, the nursing home residents were in the moderate to severe stages of dementia. We generated personalized music playlists for each participant, focusing on songs from their late teens to early 20s. The music intervention lasted for six months and included conversing with the participant to measure initial sundowning behaviors, implementing individualized music listening for at least 30 minutes, and then once again measuring sundowning behaviors. After thirty minutes of music listening, residents became significantly less confused, repetitive, restless and agitated and significantly more engaged and responsive. Aggression, the final sundowning symptom, did not improve significantly, likely due to a lack of aggressive behaviors observed prior to music listening. We next compared the extent to which the different sundowning symptoms improved in response to the music. The most improved sundowning symptom was engagement followed by confusion, with more modest changes observed in participants’ tendencies to be repetitive, agitated, restless and unresponsive. Together, these results strongly support the implementation of an individualized music listening program for older adults with dementia living in nursing homes. Listening to personalized playlists resulted in an immediate and direct improvement in sundowning in this vulnerable population. Psychology