THE EFFECT OF MUSIC ON MEMORY IN ALZHEIMERS DISEASE

Several non-pharmacological interventions for management of dementia have been suggested and one of them is music therapy which functions to stimulate the patient’s brain. The effects of music therapy have however been debated and is related to the “Mozart effects” in healthy individuals, which entailed a 10min exposure to music. The evoking effect of music on the brain is explained by the way the ‘Trion model’ found in the cerebral cortex is invoked to record the effect, in that the pattern of neural firing experienced are similar to those recorded at spatial-temporal reasoning indicating that the performance of the brain, when exposed to music, is similar to that during reasoning (Irish 109). As a result, the effect of music to excite the firing pattern of the cortical cannot be undermined.

Another viable explanation is the ‘arousal-mood’ hypothesis with the mood and arousal both signifying different but connected dimension of emotional response. Further assessment on recall of ABM indicated that as much as the recall was better in sound than silence conditions, the music set up should be well structured for effective performance, dementia patients would thus record poor performance in noisy environments such as pubs and cafeterias (Irish 110). Significant to note is that there was no recorded difference on the application of new or familiar music during assessment on their effects on the increased arousal of brain activity or enhanced relaxation of the patients. A direct connection between autobiographical recall and life era was drawn, and indications are that people with Alzheimer’s disease display a better capacity to retrieve memories from the far remote past as opposed to the recent happenings in their lives.

The effect of verbal and spoken message on arousing the brain capacity is distinct, song lyrics record better performance than lyrics with a spoken tone, explaining the maximum impact of music in enhancing memory in normal children during learning sessions (Simmons-Stern 3165). The use of music acts as great memory enhancers, and further accompaniments with musical instruments and melodies provide even much better results. Another application of music therapy is lessening the deficits in AD patients experiencing attention deficits the explanation for this is that music can increase arousal of the brain (Simmons-Stern 3166). The type of children’s songs selected during therapy could also heighten recognition and concentration in healthy adults without any attention deficits. To assess the effects of music generated arousal, it is proper that all dimensions are examined including was of presentation and delivery, if the patient responded best to music accompanied by instrumentation that should be noted and, if the scenario is vice versa, follow up is thus very essential.

In analyzing working memory in music, some music psychologist claim that there exists a dual memory arrangement comprising of short and long-term components of storing information. According to psychologist short-term memory (STM) constitutes two elements which are the storage and processing parts also termed as the working memory and entails a central executive controller containing two systems of a slave (Berz 353). Baddeley stipulates the existence of particular events to the justification of various distinct sound functions. The phenomena events include articulatory suppression, acoustic similarity, an effect of word length and most importantly ignored speech effect (Berz 354). It is also basic to analyze the connection of short and long-term memory in particular to the effect the long-term memory has on short-term memory in enhancing STM operation (Berz 354).

To determine the working memory in music, it is proper that intensive analysis is conducted to determine if there exists a disparity in the encoding and analyzing of musical and verbal information knowledge. In attempts to evaluate the nature of short-term memory on music, it is discovered that any information that is stored in the STM would eventually be forgotten if not repeatedly recited. Also, there is a difference in processing of musical and verbal information (Berz 361). The impact of music in enhancing memory in AD cannot be ignored as it improves ABM recall (Irish 116). Also, there is a difference in how the healthy individuals and AD patients responded to music and silence condition providing evidence that music therapy is indeed effective.