Music Therapy Depression

The purpose of this systematic review is to evaluate the effectiveness of music therapy in the management of depression among older adults. In this systematic review, six studies that met the inclusion criteria were included and analyzed. In general, all six studies showed that music therapy is an effective treatment of depressive symptoms for older adults who are 65 years or older with or without dementia. Among four randomized control trials, three studies conducted music therapy was conducted in a group and depicted its effectiveness in the reduction of depression symptoms (Chu et al., 2014; Cooke et al., 2010, Mohammadi et al., 2011). There were two studies that used a combined intervention in which music therapy was offered along with …show more content…
According to the National Center for Health Statistics (2010), 70% of residential care residents in the United States are female. The findings of this systematic review can be significant for older adults who are seeking non-pharmocological treatment, caregivers of older adults diagnosed with depression, adult-gerontology nurse practitioners taking care of older adults with depression interested in alternative therapy options, program directors at the long-term care facilities who are interested in implementing music therapy, and policymakers lobbying policies related to music therapy.
There are several limitations identified in this systematic literature review. First, all six studies found a statistically significant relationship between music therapy and improvement in depressive symptoms among older adults, but there a report on effect size which limits the ability for clinical significance or practical significance. Hence, there is uncertainty with the effectiveness of music …show more content…
Music interventions can vary from passive listening to active participation such as drumming, singing, and playing musical instruments. The evidences suggest that different type of live or prerecorded music such as classic, Buddhist hymns, Persian music can be listened and have significant impact on the depressive symptoms. There was no mixed finding on the effectiveness of music therapy to manage depression regardless of intervention type, duration, or intensity. However, in the future reviews randomized trails using a larger sample size are required to increase the consistency of study results, thereby maximizing the external validity in order to generalize study