Could classical music improve memory in people with Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive impairment?
A three-year study – The Mozart Effect and Memory in patients with cognitive impairment – will assess that exact topic, with music anecdotally being said to have benefit on those living with such conditions.
The project, from the Cognitive Neurolab at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), will investigate whether music can be used to facilitate or enhance learning in those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or mild Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
It will also look at which aspects of music are key in establishing a cognitive benefit, so which kinds of music – relaxing or vitalising – and what times are most useful; for example, in the phase in which we learn new information or in that in which we retrieve information we have previously learned.
Previous studies have indicated that exposure to music can increase performance in learning and attention-related tasks, but this will look at the most effective kind for memory.
“The majority of these studies were on healthy people and we don’t know if music could be a complementary tool for cognitively stimulating those with memory deficits,” says Dr Marco Calabria, leading the project.
“These neurodegenerative diseases are characterised by difficulties in forming new memories, and music could be one way of helping to consolidate new learning.”
The study will involve patients from both Barcelona’s Hospital de Sant Pau and from SINGULAR Musica & Alzheimer, a centre in Barcelona specialising in the rehabilitation and cognitive stimulation of people with Alzheimer’s through music.
In the study’s first phase, participants will carry out memory-related tasks with classical music in the background. They will have to memorise unknown faces and remember them afterwards.
Dr Calabria explains that classical music is being used because “it’s a kind of music that is characterised by being both relaxing and vitalizing, and has proven to be the most effective in giving memory a boost.
“What’s more, the fact that it has no lyrics means there is less of the interference that verbal information can cause with regard to the content that participants will have to learn in the memory tasks.”
In phase two, researchers will use music familiar to participants to see whether the fact they like it could deliver emotional, and therefore memory-related, benefits.
