According to the Alzheimer’s Association, in 2019, Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) affected almost 5.5 million people, and this number is anticipated to grow to 16 million people by 2050. AD is a progressive brain disorder that negatively impacts the ability to learn, reason, and complete daily activities or tasks.
Dr. Rebecca Deason, Associate Professor of Psychology at Texas State University, sought to better understand which interventions would work best with AD patients. Her research article, “Explicit and Implicit Memory for Music in Healthy Older Adults and Patients with Mild Alzheimer’s Disease,” published in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, focuses on how music can help patients with AD improve their memory and quality of life.
The study compared 15 adults with mild AD with 13 adults without AD. Both groups were tested for implicit and explicit memory performance by listening to instrumental music, music with words, and spoken lyrics. Implicit memory, or non-conscious memory, includes memories that are not intentionally remembered by individuals. Explicit memory involves intentional thought remembering vivid details and tasks. Patients with AD struggle the most with explicit memory and often rely on implicit memory to guide them in their daily lives.
The research team found a “significant implicit memory mere exposure effect” for both adults with and without AD when listening to instrumentals and music with words, but not spoken lyrics. Both groups also had excellent explicit memory performance, but patients with AD also showed more familiarity with instrumental songs and music with lyrics rather than spoken lyrics.
Overall, patients with AD still prefer familiar information and heavily rely on it to manage daily tasks and encounters. The results reveal the limitations of music to aid memory performance among patients with AD, because patients did not recognize the music used in the explicit memory test unless they were already familiar with it.
Dr. Deason recommends that future studies should “aim to determine the benefits and limitations of the impact of music on memory performance” and further investigate how music can impact the quality of life and overall well-being of individuals living with AD.