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The Importance of Music to Seniors
Abstract
To determine the significance of music in the lives of senior individuals, a short questionnaire was added to the protocol of the 2nd phase of the Canadian Study of Health and Aging (CSHA2). Over 300 participants (mean age 78.3 years) from Prince Edward Island (N=211) and Nova Scotia (N=109) completed the questionnaire. Their ratings of the importance of music produced a modal response of the highest rating category. This judged level of importance of music was independent of age and mental status, as measured by the Modified Mini-Mental State Exam (3MS), but correlated with past and current involvement in music. Favorite music covered a broad range of styles, with period of popularity of the music weighted toward earlier rather than later decades of life. The same questionnaire was administered 2.5 years later to 93 CSHA2 seniors, including 78 individuals from the original sample. These results confirmed the previous observations. The importance of music to seniors, as shown here, raises questions about the optimum level of access to music by seniors. Increasing access to relevant music experiences, for example, through public broadcasting, or accessibility to choirs, instruments, training, and music therapists, may help maintain and augment quality of life in later years.
... Suitability leads to the sample group's motivation and positive participation. Carefect (2013) and Cohen et al. (2002) highlighted that when a sample group listens to, sing, moves along to, and improvises the songs they like, the positive impact on their mental health and enjoyment leads to their physical development and improved behavior, personality, and music skills. The entire process, which includes designing and implementing activities and gaining results on the sample's development from them, is aimed at developing music skills, behavior, and personality using creative music activities. ...
... This is because singing in the musical arts has often been discussed as a channel for human emotion and expression (Kivy, 2001). Further, the health benefits of musical engagement cut across the age dichotomy (Cohen, Bailey & Nilsson, 2002). Active participation in singing with the appropriate generative mechanisms is likely to contribute to self-expression and mood enhancement, sense of place and belonging as described by Duffy (2005). ...
Choral singing, termed 'mixed chorus', is an integral part of the academic activities of the Department of Music Education, University of Education, Winneba. However, the impact of the singing on the wellbeing of the students and lecturers is largely unexplored. With 350 participants, this study contributes to filling that gap. Using questionnaire and interviews, the article examines the health benefits of singing in terms of emotional, psychological, social and physical wellbeing. It concludes that the mixed chorus has a great impact on the total health of the participants. However, this impact is dependent on some generative mechanisms needed in the training of choral singers. Public health professionals and researchers are increasingly giving serious consideration to the idea that the fitness and wellbeing of individuals, institutions and communities are dependent on multiple factors that call for collaboration across and within sectors. This is probably due to the redefinition of health by the World Health Organisation (1946) which recognises freedom of choice and emphasizes the role of individuals and communities in defining what health means to them. Epp (1987) comments on this new perspective of health from a broad range of factors, such as human biology, lifestyle, the organisation of health care, and the social and physical environments in which people live: Health ceases to be measurable strictly in terms of illness and death. It becomes a state which individuals and communities alike strive to achieve, maintain or regain, and not something that comes about merely as a result of treating and curing illnesses and injuries. It is a basic and dynamic force in our daily lives, influenced by our circumstances, our beliefs, our culture and our social, economic and physical environments. (p. 420) Given the dynamic force of health in our daily lives, there is the need to examine other possible activities and circumstances that facilitate the wellbeing of the people. It is for this reason that this study is undertaken to explore the extent to which choral singing can be one of such broad factors for solving contemporary problems relating to health and wellbeing.
... There has been a lot of research done on the connection between music and wellbeing in the elderly. Adults' lives are enriched by music (Cohen, Bailey, & Nilsson, 2002). Takht in Turkish, lit platform, refers to a popular music group in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the Arab world. ...
Oud, short-necked, and frantic "lute" fret-less lute is traditional instrument music come from the Middle East, which has many advantages over humans. The 'King of Instruments' in Islamic civilization is the most commonly used and most important musical instrument among the Arabs. The aim of the present study of the current systematic survey aims to find out the types of research related to the use of Oud musical instruments for healing purposes. This article analyzed the recent literature on advantage instrument music Oud for healing purposes. Guided by the PRISMA Statement (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis) research process, a systematic review of the Scopus, Science Direct, PubMed, ProQuest, Springer and EBSCO databases, including those relating to well-being, health, art interventions, 6 related studies. Oud instrument has three benefits for healing purposes. Result shows, in terms of well-being, the average indicates tool helps by showing the constructive impact on the recipient's psychology. In terms of health, the Oud instrument helps by showing a positive effect on the patient's health. In terms of art intervention, the Oud instrument is seen to help in the suitability of the desired music. In conclusion, while there has been no study done on the use of Oud musical instruments in music therapy, despite the fact that these musical instruments have been available for a long time and are increasing in popularity around the world, there is still no research on their use in music therapy.
... However, older adults who engaged in low-and high-decibel activities preferred fast-rhythmed instrumental music. A possible reason for this is that this type of music can stimulate and improve cortical activity [50,51]. However, slow-rhythmed instrumental music still dominated overall because it was dull most of the time [52]. ...
The role of soundscape quality is being increasingly recognised in human well-being. This is also true for older adults, an increasingly growing group. In this study, we investigated the influence of different sound environments on the emotions and behaviour of older adults, as well as the correlation between crowd density and sound environment. This study was conducted in large and comprehensive activity spaces in a residential aged care facility in China. The participants included older adults who utilize or reside at the centre; they were divided into a control group and an experimental group. The experimental and control groups were provided a ‘with music’ or ‘no music’ environment, respectively. By setting the music type in the experimental group, we found that positive emotional experience and satisfaction were higher with slow-rhythmed music than that with fast-rhythmed music (p < 0.001). Crowd density was also significantly higher when slow-rhythmed music was played compared to that during fast-rhythmed music. Under the setting of natural sounds, the pleasure associated with individual activities was significantly higher than that of group activities. With an increase in crowd density, correlation with natural sounds was also increased. Overall, these research results provide a theoretical basis for the accurate control of audio variables in residential aged care facilities.
... From a practical standpoint, even if the benefit of music training for speech recognition in noise is mediated by improved cognitive abilities, there could still be advantages to a music-based auditory training program. Listening to music is a highly enjoyable activity that most older adults do every day (Cohen et al., 2002). In addition, listening to music can improve mood and arousal, contributing to a sense of connection with others (Hays & Minichiello, 2005) and leading to better performance on cognitive tasks (Thompson et al., 2001). ...
Purpose
Music training has been proposed as a possible tool for auditory training in older adults, as it may improve both auditory and cognitive skills. However, the evidence to support such benefits is mixed. The goal of this study was to determine the differential effects of lifelong musical training and working memory on speech recognition in noise, in older adults.
Method
A total of 31 musicians and nonmusicians aged 65–78 years took part in this cross-sectional study. Participants had a normal pure-tone average, with most having high-frequency hearing loss. Working memory (memory capacity) was assessed with the backward Digit Span test, and speech recognition in noise was assessed with three clinical tests (Quick Speech in Noise, Hearing in Noise Test, and Revised Speech Perception in Noise).
Results
Findings from this sample of older adults indicate that neither music training nor working memory was associated with differences on the speech recognition in noise measures used in this study. Similarly, duration of music training was not associated with speech-in-noise recognition.
Conclusions
Results from this study do not support the hypothesis that lifelong music training benefits speech recognition in noise. Similarly, an effect of working memory (memory capacity) was not apparent. While these findings may be related to the relatively small sample size, results across previous studies that investigated these effects have also been mixed. Prospective randomized music training studies may be able to better control for variability in outcomes associated with pre-existing and music training factors, as well as to examine the differential impact of music training and working memory for speech-in-noise recognition in older adults.
Abstracts of the 12th European Music Therapy Conference. Published as an online special edition in the British Journal of Music Therapy.
Available on: https://journals.sagepub.com/page/bjmb/abstractsofthe12theuropeanmusictherapyconference
The impact of music on the many dimensions of human life can be partly attributed to its linguistic component – the lyrics. In hopes of helping songwriters reach their full potential, researchers have implemented advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technology to automatically generate song lyrics. These efforts, however, were met with challenges that accompany the distinctive qualities of song lyrics, such as word repetition, structural pattens, and line breaks; all of which are dependent on the music genre. Seeing as most previous research either focuses on a given approach or genre, or performs the task without consideration of lyric variation among genres, this study attempts to address the gap by exploring and comparing the capabilities of three promising methods, specifically Markov chains, long short-term memory (LSTM), and gated recurrent units (GRU), in algorithmically generating lyrics for six selected music genres, namely rock, pop, country, hip-hop, electronic dance music (EDM), and rhythm and blues (R&B). Our findings show that LSTM scored better in the average readability index in overall, however, GRU produced the overall highest Rhyme Density score.
Objective: The goal of this exploratory study was to predict which long-term care residents with dementia would experience improvements in their sundowning symptoms after listening to personalized music playlists. Methods: We studied 101 residents with moderate to severe dementia from 15 long-term care facilities across 8 months. We observed residents' behavioral responses to individualized music while they listened and recorded sundowning symptoms both before and after each listening session. Results: As hypothesized, residents who exhibited a greater number of positive reactive behaviors while listening to music also evidenced more improvements in their confusion, disengagement, unresponsiveness, and restlessness after their music-listening session. Discussion: Our results reveal that observing behavioral responses during music listening is an effective way to determine when nursing home residents are benefiting from personalized music playlists. These findings inform music programs in long-term care settings by identifying residents whose sundowning symptoms are most amenable to music intervention.
Changing demographics mean that many people in middle and older age pursue leisure activities, including active participation in music. This research explored affordances of group music participation, the impact of disruption of in person activities on wellbeing due to COVID-19 social distancing restrictions and variations in these with age. An online survey and focus groups were conducted with amateur musicians in the UK. Adults over the age of 45 were targeted in the survey. All were active in community group music making, with a mean length of experience of ensemble playing of 30 years. They rated the impact of group membership and of social distancing on social, physical and emotional wellbeing, and described their experiences of using remote methods to meet or rehearse. Older (66+) people reported more benefits from music participation on physical health and musical engagement. Respondents aged 65 or under, and members of self-organised groups were impacted more by being unable to meet, and were more likely to keep in touch by other means. Over 50% of the respondents participated in remote rehearsals or meetings which provided opportunities for social contact, learning, or planning. This study revealed differences in the experiences of people of different age cohorts, and in different music group contexts. These findings have implications for the role of group music in healthy ageing, highlighting music participation benefits in transitioning to later life stages.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.