Evaluating the effects of singing songs in ethnic music therapy for dementia patients with a novel near-infrared spectroscopy (data analysis method)

Summary Background Dementia is already critical issues in the world. This situation requires establishment of rehabilitation for relieving symptoms of patients. We have done research based on our assumption that most effective music therapy differs from culture, because music is dependent on cultural context. In this paper, we focus on active behavior (sing a song) of music therapy, and studied its effects. We used Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) as a method for evaluating effectiveness of music therapy, though standard procedures of NIRS data processing has not been established. This is the reason why we here propose a new analysis method of NIRS data for evaluating effectiveness of music therapy. Methods We collected 87 volunteers including 79 dementia patients. We let the volunteers hear music prepared by us as follows: 2 famous nursery songs, 2 famous play songs, 2 original music, and 2 classical scale. We observed their response in 2 ways: one is a physiological response measured by NIRS, and the other is a subjective response measured by questionnaires. Results Our result showed dementia patients prefer Japanese old melodies, but they don't understand tonality of the Japanese music. This tendency is strengthened by adding Song task. Also, dementia patients are poor at careful control of the blood volume change. Our result displayed singing a song induces out-of-control state of brain blood flow in every stage. Our results revealed characteristic responses of dementia patients onto Japanese music. Conclusion We expect our result provides an evidence for better music therapy for dementia patients with Japanese culture.