PREFERENCES OF ALZHEIMERS - DISEASE PATIENTS FOR MUSIC ACTIVITIES - SINGING, INSTRUMENTS, DANCE MOVEMENT, GAMES, AND COMPOSITION IMPROVISATION

Twenty female residents in two nursing homes, with a probable diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD), participated in this study designed to investigate the preferences of AD patients for five different types of music activities: (a) singing, (b) playing instruments, (c) moving/dancing, (d) musical games, and (e) composition/improvisation. The order of activities was counterbalanced by using a Latin square design, and all music activities were pilot tested and adapted to the patients' level of functioning. Subjects met twice a week during 30 minutes in small groups of two to four people for a total of five sessions. During each 30-minute period, one of the five musical activities was presented. At the end of each session, subjects were asked to state how much they had enjoyed the type of music activity of the day (like OK, like a lot, did not like). Sessions were videotaped for post hoc analysis of subjects' responses. Preference in this study was determined by proportion of time actively participating in each of the activities, and by verbal report. The results of a repeated measures ANOVA and subsequent Fisher PLSD test indicated that participation in composing/improvising was significantly lower than involvement with playing instruments, dancing or playing games (F-19.80 = 4.21, p = .0001). However, the results of a two-way Chi-square revealed no relationship between verbal preference and type of music activity (chi2(12) = 12.37, p > .10). These results seem to indicate that behavior and verbal report do not concur in these individuals, and that either they enjoyed equally all music activities or they were not very discriminating at the verbal level. Implications for music therapy practice are discussed.