Effects of music therapy on Alzheimer’s patients

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Alzheimer’s is a common disease that affects the brains of mainly the elderly people that leads to progressive memory loss and reasoning ability that was discovered by Alois Alzheimer in 1906( Martinez).  According to Cannobio, the disease which mostly attacks people between the ages of 40-90 does not have a specific cause but the damage it causes to some areas of the brain lead to progressive and irreversible loss of thinking capabilities of the brain (Cannobio, 2006). The thought process of these patients gets tampered with hence their social and work life is affected. The condition of patients with this disease is bound to worsen because the brain cells loose their functioning capability and ultimately die.

Rothfeld and Romaine state that some changes in the biological and chemical processes in the brain as a person grows old allow deposits of proteins which in turn lead to development of this condition (Glenn, Rothfeld & Romaine, 2005). These proteins which they identity as Tangles and plagues are protein structures that cause the death of the brain cells for they kill and destroy and nerve cells. As people grow, so do these structures. A patient with Alzheimer’s condition, their protein structures rapidly increases which causes blockage of the communication being relayed by the brain and hence the nerve cell activities are distracted eventually. Most often, an individual will experience confusion and problems in remembering things while at times there are those who think slowly. If such symptoms are detected, an individual is supposed to visit the physician who will check the cells of the brain which is malfunctioning.

This disease though irreversible and incurable can be controlled through the use of music therapy (Jeong, 2008) .The aim of this research is to evaluate the reasons as to why these patients need music therapy. This condition has no treatment or cure, but several measures can be used to prevent or rather delay the inception of the condition.

The kind of music listened to by the patients should be one that makes them feel relaxed and at home. The fast kind of music listened to be young adults is not very common to this therapy since it is considered noisy and unorganized. The kind of music induced to the systems of these patients will either worsen or improve their conditions. In order to come up with credible facts on the issue research would also be done in a care facility for patients with the disease. It is expected that the findings of this research would be helpful to patients with the condition and further people will adopt the use of music therapy to help patients with the condition.