A brand new therapy that makes use of music remedy on dementia wards might enhance care and help for among the NHS’s most weak sufferers.
Researchers at Anglia Ruskin College (ARU) and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Basis Belief have piloted a music remedy method referred to as MELODIC, throughout two NHS dementia wards.
Extra options to psychotropic medicine are wanted to help dementia sufferers who expertise extreme misery.
The pilot research concerned a music therapist being embedded on hospital wards, the supply of scientific music classes and the implementation of musical care plans for every affected person, and outcomes from the analysis have been printed within the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry.
Music remedy, delivered by skilled therapists, can embrace singing, enjoying or listening to music. The therapist also can determine particular ways in which music can be utilized by households and caregivers in a person’s day by day care routine.
Throughout the research, affected person information urged a slight enchancment in quality-of-life scores amongst sufferers and a discount within the severity of misery signs and disruptiveness, though agitation scores elevated barely.
There have been no will increase in routinely reported incidents, and no antagonistic occasions associated to music remedy interventions have been reported. That is related for future analysis on psychological well being dementia wards the place restricted research have been carried out thus far.
Lead writer Naomi Thompson, a researcher on the Cambridge Institute for Music Remedy Analysis at Anglia Ruskin College (ARU), stated, “Folks with dementia on inpatient psychological well being wards are sometimes experiencing very excessive ranges of misery, and workers are below immense strain to handle this in methods which can be protected and compassionate.
“Our research yielded promising outcomes and importantly confirmed that the MELODIC software can be utilized successfully in these extremely complicated settings, giving an alternate choice to present methods of managing extreme misery, comparable to psychotropic medicine.”
The method was formed by interviews with 49 well being care professionals, sufferers, and their households about their experiences managing misery on dementia wards and utilizing music in on a regular basis care and life to assist develop the intervention.
Importantly, the intervention—which has been co-designed by clinicians, researchers, and other people with lived expertise—value simply £2,025 per thirty days for the therapist and £400 preliminary outlay for gear, suggesting a low-cost, scalable mannequin.
Dr. Ben Underwood, Analysis and Growth Director and Honorary Guide Psychiatrist at CPFT stated, “Some individuals with dementia can get so confused and distressed that we have to admit them to hospital to maintain them protected. It may be troublesome to handle misery in a ward surroundings and exhausting for sufferers, households and workers.
“I’m very excited that it could now be potential for NHS workers to enhance their expertise on dementia wards utilizing the ability of music, and we sit up for working with ARU to develop this additional.”
Extra data:
Music remedy Embedded within the Life Of Dementia Inpatient Care (MELODIC) to assist stop and handle misery: a feasibility research to tell a future trial, Frontiers in Psychiatry (2025). DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1618324
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Music remedy could ease misery for dementia sufferers in hospital wards (2025, July 16)
retrieved 17 July 2025
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