Adaptive Music Therapy for Alzheimer’s Disease Using Virtual Reality

Abstract

With Alzheimer’s disease becoming more prevalent, finding effective treatment is imperative. While no pharmacological treatment has yet proven to be efficient, we explore how technology can be integrated into non-pharmacological intervention to enhance its benefits. We propose a new and unique version of Music Therapy, an already existing therapy known to be beneficial. Music therapy has been shown to improve emotions and certain cognitive functions, which is the main focus of our study. To this aim, we designed a virtual reality environment consisting of a music theatre in which participants are immersed among the audience. A meticulously chosen selection of songs is presented on stage accompanied by visual effects. Results show that the environment decreases negative emotions, increases positive emotions, and improved memory performances were observed in most participants following the immersive experience. We speculate that by improving emotions through adaptive music therapy, our environment facilitates memory recall. With virtual reality now being easily accessible and inexpensive, we believe this novel approach could help patients through the disease.