Music Interventions for the Elderly: An Asia-Pacific Perspective into the Future of Patient-Centric Geriatric Care

Abstract

Background/Introduction: The imperative for patient-centric geriatric care is especially pressing in the Asia-Pacific - home to 60% of the world’s elderly. Increasingly heterogeneous and long-term healthcare needs, on a background of culturally diverse healthcare beliefs, have generated shifts in interest towards harnessing non-pharmacological interventions to tailor more personalized care approaches.

Music interventions stand out over other non-pharmacologics for delivering humanistic and individualised geriatric care, with its ease of customization, inextricable connections with personal memories and emotions, and social interactions facilitated. Readily integrable with activities stimulating multiple senses (e.g. choral singing, playing an instrument) and providing physical exercise (e.g. movements to music), music interventions demonstrate much promise for maximizing healthspan even in the face of pre-existing sensory and cognitive impairments.

An Asia-Pacific perspective on music interventions for the elderly is warranted, given the region’s rich depositories of folk and traditional music, yet relative paucity of relevant research that seeks to develop safe and patient-oriented geriatric care of the future. 

Objectives: To raise awareness of prevailing evidence on music interventions for the elderly in the Asia-Pacific. Salient use cases will be highlighted – namely advances in the care of dementia, delirium, depression, chronic pain, palliative care, and health preservation in community-dwelling seniors.