Effectiveness of Music Therapy on Focused Attention, Working Memory and Stress in Type 2 Diabetes: An Exploratory Study

Potential impact of music interventions in managing diabetic conditions

Diabetes is one of the most prevalent diseases, characterized by an insufficiency in insulin secretion as well as chronic hyperglycemia and disturbances in carbohydrate, lipid, and protein metabolism. The major aim of this study was to conduct a literature review on the impact of music intervention on the management of diabetic conditions among patients. Available studies on the impact of music interventions on the management of diabetic conditions were reviewed and analysed using descriptive literature review approach. This review showed that music intervention plays a dual role in managing patients' diabetic conditions. First, music intervention is impactful in managing the health condition of diabetic patients through enhancing the patient’s compliance with exercise, improving lower limb blood circulation, and enhancing health parameters that increase autonomous balance among diabetic patients. Second, music therapy is impactful in the management of diabetic conditions through lowering blood sugar, heart rate, glucose levels, and stress among patients. However, with the number of empirical studies available in this regard, the impact of music intervention is still growing, and longer-term studies and randomised controlled trials with robust sample size are recommended to reach a more valid conclusion.

Music and neuro-cognitive deficits in depression

Background

Cognitive deficits are one of the core features of major depressive disorder (MDD) that play crucial role in functional recovery. Studies have explored cognitive deficits in MDD, however, given inconsistent results, especially in mild-moderate MDD. Recently, studies have explored music as cognitive ability in various clinical conditions. In MDD, large focus has been on evaluating emotion deficits and just a handful on music cognition. With growing evidence on use of music based intervention to target cognitive deficits, it is imperative to explore nature of music cognitive ability in MDD.

Aim

To examine musical and neuro-cognitive deficits in patients with mild-moderate MDD.

Methods

Patients diagnosed with mild or moderate MDD (n = 19) and matched healthy controls (HC) (n = 18) were evaluated on selected tests from NIMHANS Neuropsychological test battery and Montreal battery for evaluation of amusia (MBEA).

Results

MDD group performed significantly lower than HC on working memory (p = 0.007), verbal learning (p = 0.02) and retention (p = 0.03). Three indices were computed for a comprehensive evaluation. Groups did not differ significantly in any of the indices- focused attention, executive function, learning and memory as well as on music cognition. Focused attention and memory index predicted music cognition in HC and the combined group (MDD + HC) (p < 0.01). Attention alone contributed to 62.1% of variance in music cognition. Similarly, music cognition significantly predicted focused attention (p < 0.01).

Conclusion

Individuals with mild-moderate MDD show significant deficits in working memory, verbal learning and memory, however, not in music cognition. There exists a significant relationship between music cognition and attention, which could be implicated in use of music interventions to ameliorate cognitive deficits. Limitations of study include small sample size and heterogeneity. Future studies on larger cohort examining musical emotion perception and neurocognition is imperative to have deeper understanding of this debilitating condition.

How Music Impacts Visual Attention Training in Schizophrenia: A Pilot Study

Music has been demonstrated to improve cognitive test performance in neuropsychiatric populations. However, the impact of music on cognitive training effects, and the importance of music preference, has yet to be studied. This is an essential oversight because many cognitive training programs play music in the background. We sought to determine if participant-preferred or random music would increase the efficacy of computer-based attention training (AT). Forty-eight patients with schizophrenia were randomly assigned to 2 weeks of either: 1) AT with participants' choice of background music, 2) AT with random background music, 3) AT without music, or 4) a no training or music control-watching videos without AT or music. All groups except the no training/no music control group demonstrated improvement in reaction time and response accuracy after training, with those participating in AT with their choice of music exhibiting greater gains than either of the other two AT groups. These findings suggest that complimenting AT with music, and allowing participants to choose the music, may increase the efficacy of AT.