Abstract Details

Title Musical Museum: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Integrative Life Enrichment for Individuals with Neurocognitive Disorders and their Care Partners

Topic Aging, Dementia, and Behavioral Neurology

Presentation(s) P9 - Poster Session 9 (5:00 PM-6:00 PM)

Poster/Presentation
Number 13-002

Objective To demonstrate the potential of live music in tandem with intellectually stimulating content and opportunities for socialization to improve the well-being of individuals with neurocognitive disorders (NcD) and their caregivers.

Background

Social, emotional, and cognitive stimulation are protective factors that can slow NcD progression, making them priorities for early and moderate dementia interventions. Live music programs with music appreciation content serve as social prescriptions by providing these types of stimulation, but their application in NcD intervention remains underexplored. This abstract introduces Musical Museum, a concert curriculum blending live music with intellectually stimulating content in a social environment.

Design/Methods Musical Museum participants included individuals with NcD and their care partners. Each 45-60 minute session featured a combination of familiar music based on participants’ reminiscence bumps and preference polls as well as less familiar, diatonic and culturally diverse music. Verbal introductions highlighting musical and historical context were crafted to engage participants. Post-program receptions facilitated socialization. Participants were given printed programs and surveys. Surveys assessed satisfaction, intellectual stimulation and mood change, which was analyzed using a Wilcoxon signed-rank test.

Results A total of 254 participants completed surveys across 11 sessions. On a five-point Likert scale, respondents reported an overall satisfaction of 4.4 and intellectual stimulation level of 4.2. Respondents also indicated a significant improvement in mood post-session (4.5) compared to pre-session (3.5), as measured by a Wilcoxon test (p<0.001; W=52).

Conclusions Positive survey feedback demonstrated the feasibility and acceptability of the program, highlighting its potential to enhance social, emotional and intellectual stimulation and therefore serve as a multimodal NcD intervention. Future efforts will focus on incorporating real-time neurophysiologic measures and expanding the collection of audience response data to further characterize these impacts.

Authors/Disclosures
Borna Bonakdarpour, MD, FAAN (Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer Disease) PRESENTER	Dr. Bonakdarpour has nothing to disclose.
Melanie Zhang, PhD	Dr. Zhang has nothing to disclose.
Jonathan Z. Zhao	Mr. Zhao has nothing to disclose.
Catherine Vidano	Ms. Vidano has nothing to disclose.
Clara Takarabe (Northwestern University Neurology)	Ms. Takarabe has nothing to disclose.

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