Essay Sample

Music Therapy for Patients with Dementia First Author, Second Author, Third Author 2A Faculty of Nursing Dementia is a serious case, and everyone should be aware of it. Dementia is a syndrome that used to represent the symptoms that affects the cognitive function of the brain such as memory, thinking, orientation, comprehension, calculation, learning capacity, language and judgement (World Health Organization, 2017). Dementia cannot be cured but the symtomps can be managed. There are a lot of therapies for patients with dementia. One of them is music therapy. Music therapy is used for a safe alternative approach that has been used as one of the important non- pharmacological therapy strategies to treat dementia because of its ability to reduce the symptoms of dementia. However, as a nurse, we need to understand that almost all treatments have both advantages and disadvantages and music therapy has the sides also. This essay will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using music therapy for patients with dementia. Music therapy is beneficial to be given to patients with dementia. Firstly, music theraphy is recommended for non-pharmacological interventions. Ueda et al. (2013) said that music therapy is more effective to treat behavioural and psychological symptoms than other non-pharmacological treatments. It means music therapy is safe to help patients with dementia. Secondly, musis theraphy is also beneficial for reducing anxiety in dementia patients. Music can give positive mood to the patients and make them feel relax, especially if they listen to their favourite music. As a result, music can decrease agitation level and negative behaviours in dementia people (Lamparero-Plokhotnikov, 2015). Other than that, this therapy also has been proved to improve the patients' cognitive. Music can reactivate the nerves' function, so that they will not get worse. Music will stimulate the right brain to have a better long-term memory and control emotion (Prabasari, 2016). All in all, music therapy can be used to help patients with dementia because it has several advantages.

Using music therapy for patients with dementia also has some disadvantages. First of all, not all types of music can be used in this therapy, music therapy must be individual and cannot be the same for each patient. For example, if patients A does not like to listen to a rock music but we play a rock music to him/her, he/she will not enjoy the music. As a result, his/her mood will not be positive. Secondly, music therapy is not a total cure for dementia patients, but it only prevents the severity. According to Brown (2017), music therapy does not cure totally, but may reduce the social, emotional, cognitive and behavioral problems of the patient. This means using music therapy for patients with dementia will not make them totally recovered from being dementia. Lastly, music therapy need long durations to give significant effect. This is because it depends on what stages of dementia that the patients have. Because of these reasons, employing music therapy to patients with dementia will not guarantee that they will get totally recovered, and thus, we need to be aware of it. Knowing the advantages and disadvantages of music therapy for patients with dementia has led nurses into a serious consideration. Although music theraphy has its weakneses, it has less risks. The slightest decrease in the syndrome in dementia patients will be very valuable for them. At least, with music therapy, dementia patients have other alternatives rather than only consuming chemical drugs that can give certain side effects, especially if the petients have drug allergy. Thus, its advantages should become considerations to give this to dementia patients. In addition, as a nurse, we need to be wise before we decide to give musical therapy for patients with dementia. In conclusion, music therapy is a good non-pharmacological treatment that can decrease anxiety in dementia patients and can improve the patients’ cognitive skill without consuming many drugs. However, there are some weaknesses in this therapy. As a nurse, we must choose right music for dementia patients because not all music can be used. We must also know that music therapy only prevents severity of dementia and this therapy need long durations to give significant effect. Nevertheless, music therapy is a recommendable intervention to treat dementia patients.

References Brown, S. (2017). Using music intervention to reduce anxiety and agitation for dementia residents in long term setting (Dissertations and Doctoral Studies, Walden University, Minnesota, United States of America). Retrieved from https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations Lamparero-Plokhotnikov, J. (2015). The use of music in dementia care: A literature study (Bachelor Degree Thesis, Novia University of Applied Science, Vaasa, Finland). Retrieved from https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/101219/plokhotnikov.jeanette.p df Prabasari, N. (2016). Literature review: Pengaruh terapi musik terhadap agitasi pada lansia demensia. Jurnal Ners Lentera, 4(1), 26-39. ISSN 2338-624X Ueda, T., Suzukamo, Y., Sato, M., Izumi, S. (2013). Effects of music therapy on behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Ageing Research Reviews, 12(2013), 628-641. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.arr.2013.02.003 World Health Organization. (2017). Dementia. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/dementia