Does music therapy affect the global cognitive function of patients with dementia? A meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Studies have shown that music therapy can improve a variety of symptoms of patients with dementia. The impact of music therapy on the global cognition of patients with dementia is controversial now. OBJECTIVE: To explore whether music therapy has an effect on the global cognitive function of patients with dementia. METHODS: PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Google Academy and National Knowledge Infrastructure were systematically searched to collect all literature studies published since the establishment of the database until November 2020. All randomized controlled trials that met the criteria of music therapy in the intervention group and standard care in the control group with outcome measures of Mini-mental State Examination (MMSE) were included. Analysis was performed using Stata 16.0. RESULTS: The results showed that compared with the control group, the MMSE score in the music therapy group was generally higher (MD = 0.86, 95% CI: 0.07-1.66, P = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS: The result of this study differs from those of previous relevant meta-analyses, suggesting that music therapy is likely to improve the global cognitive function of patients with dementia, but more rigorous clinical trials are still needed to provide more sufficient and real evidence.