Review of

Musical Structural Determinants of Emotional Judgments in Dementia

Of the Alzheimer Type

Introduction

It is said that music can be used to sooth to people suffering from dementia of Alzheimer type (DAT). There are, however, a few studies that shed light conducted in past to approve or disapprove this perception. The paper “Musical Structural Determinants of Emotional Judgments in Dementia of the Alzheimer Type” by L. Gagnon (Universite´ de Sherbrooke), I. Peretz (Universite´ de Montre´al) and T. Fulop (Universite´ de Sherbrooke) attempts to examine this perception of emotional judgment of music in early DAT and healthy elderly subjects to compare their response and level of sensitivity towards music. The subject matter of the research attracted my attention as, in my opinion, it could be helpful in assessing the importance of music in treating people with DAT. The purpose of the study is, as stated by the authors, to investigate the effect of two principal determinants of musical emotional judgment i.e. mode and tempo on DAT patients and healthy elderly participants. The study has far-reaching implications in the treatment of patients suffering from DAT and whether musical judgment can be applied on people with DAT.

Discussion

Although treatment by means of musical interventions appears to be, according to some studies, a soothing tool for people suffering from DAT, it still lacks a systematic and verifiable proof of its effectiveness. There are some systematic reviews on music therapy for the treatment of dementia people (Solfrizzi, 2008), but most of the research conducted in this area was a result of poor and, somehow, inappropriate experimental methodologies. In the early stages, Alzheimer do damage some important cerebral structures and resultantly affect the emotional processing in the people suffering from the disease (Patterson C, Feightner, Garcia, Hsiung, MacKnight and Sadovnick, 2008). Most of the studies conducted to investigate the role of musical judgment have found that there exists evidence that shows people with DAT are impaired from musical judgment (Vieillard, S. 2008). Those studies, however, made no distinction between early and moderate DAT patients and incorporated results by studying groups of mixed participants. There were a very few studies in which early and moderate DAT patients were distinguished and their results showed no impairment for emotional judgment but the same study found significant sign of impairment when conducted on the same patient three years later (Adenzato, Cavallo, Enrici 2010). There is only study that has systematically assessed the role ...