News About Music For All Seasons

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Read research report: "Music and Quality of Life Among Nursing Home Residents With Dementia"

"The Healing Art and Science of Music,"

October 28 and 29 at the JFK Conference Center in Edison, NJ, was the first conference to bring together as co-presenters an arts organization, a major medical center and a leading university. Music For All Seasons presented the conference, along with JFK Medical Center, the New Jersey Neuroscience Institute, and Seton Hall University's School of Graduate Medical Education. Co-sponsors were the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, NAMM, Roland, and Martine Avenue Productions. The conference will be repeated next year. The conference brought together leading experts from the medical and musical worlds to provide an overview of groundbreaking research and findings in the interdisciplinary fields of Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI).

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Dr. Kenneth Aigen, Co-Director of the Nordoff Robbins Center for Music in New York City demonstrated his remarkable success in communicating with autistic and emotionally disturbed children through music therapy and transforming the children's responses from at first screaming to music and after several sessions achieving the ability to recognize and play with musical sounds. In some cases this led to verbal communication and the learning of substantial vocabulary.

The Saturday morning conference session opened with a drum circle led by Mark Jacopec. University of California music therapist Ron Borczon demonstrated how to create a community through the use of story-telling with singing and drumming. Drum circles are increasingly used to alleviate stress in a variety of situations, including caregivers in hospitals and in workplaces.

A pilot study on the effect of music on the quality of life among nursing home residents with dementia was conducted for Music For All Seasons by Dr. Martin Gizzi, Chairman of the New Jersey Neuroscience Institute and Chairman of the Medical Advisory Board of Music For All Seasons.

Patients experienced two Music For All Seasons programs and were tested on the Cornell-Brown Scale for Quality of Life. Testing took place at two week intervals both before and after each program. The results indicated that Quality of Life scores were positively affected by the music programs primarily in the areas of mood and idea disorder. There was a suggestion that the need for sedating medication decreased, however the effect was not significant due to the low frequency of medication use, even at baseline.

It was determined that the results justify a much larger study in which biological stress markers, infection rates and hospitalization rates should be added.

The quality of life of patients with dementia is affected by depression, apathy, agitation, sleep difficulties, loss of autonomy and social isolation. There are strong anecdotal reports that these conditions can be ameliorated with regular exposure to live music. Such amelioration is expected also to contribute to a reduction in caregiver stress, thus reducing employee turnover. This should also reduce both infection and hospitalization rates among long-term care residents.

Music For All Seasons is seeking funding for further controlled and scientific study on this topic.

When Music For All Seasons was founded in 1991 part of its mission was to educate the public as to the link between music and health. This conference and Dr. Gizzi's study are fulfilling that aspect of the mission.

Brian F. Dallow

President & Executive Director
Music For All Seasons, Inc.