The design, development and evaluation of a personalised music-listening intervention for people with dementia in acute care

Music presents a powerful emotional, social and cognitive stimulus for people with dementia (PWD) (Särkämö, Laitinen,Tervaniemi, Numminen, Kurki & Rantanen, 2012). Not only does it bypass the economical deficit and ethical risks inherent within traditional, pharmacological and physical treatment methods, it further works to reduce the incidence of the behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia, thus proffering a whole host of beneficial outcomes for both the individual and wider society (Lin, Chu, Yang, Chen, Chen,Chang et al., 2011). In particular, the use of personally meaningful music preferences (PM) appears be a particularly fruitful yet relatively untapped area of research. Irrespective of the severity of cognitive decline, individuals with dementia often remain responsive to familiar musical preferences where other stimuli have failed (Baird & Samson, 2009).