Music intervention affects the quality of life on Alzheimer’s disease: a meta-analysis

Background: Music intervention has been found to be beneficial for neurological diseases, especially in slowing down the progression of clinical symptom in patients. However, it remains unclear to what extend can music intervention may affect patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Questions remain on whether music intervention can improve the quality of life (QOL) of AD patients, who are usually with poor QOL owning to the burden of disease. Methods: A search that compared the effectiveness of music intervention to improve the QOL of AD patients were carried out. PubMed, Cochrane library clinical trial database, and WANFANG database were searched to collect data from randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Two independent researchers extracted data from the selected eligible articles by using collection form and RevMan5.3 statistical software and applied for the meta-analysis. Results: We included six RCTs in our meta-analysis. The results showed that compared to the control group, music intervention can significantly increase the score of the QOL-AD scale (MD=5.10, 95%CI: 2.95-7.24, P<0.001) and The World Health Organization QOL Rating Scale Short Form score (MD=5.76, 95%CI: 1.59-9.92, P=0.007). Conclusions: Results suggested that music intervention could improve the QOL for the elderly patients with AD. Our findings indicated that music intervention might be considered as a non-pharmaceutical therapy for patients with AD in the future.