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Twenty-eight severely regressed patients with dementias hospitalized at a Veterans Affairs Medical Center in the Midwest participated as subjects in this study. All patients, except for one, were male and all patients, except for one, had functional hearing. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of no music, stimulative background music and sedative background music conditions on the agitated behaviors of patients with severe dementias. Data were taken with a placheck method for 30 days; 10 days for each of the three conditions, three times a day for 30 minutes. The conditions were assigned randomly. The results showed no significant differences in the percentages of agitated behaviors exhibited during the three testing conditions. The music and no music background conditions did not influence significantly the agitated behaviors. In addition, significant differences in the percentages exhibited across times of day and across days for the entire testing period were not found. The findings indicate background music, as it was selected and presented randomly in this study, had no apparent influence over agitated behaviors. It is possible that persons who experience music in structured contexts over time may respond differently. It is recommended that future research explore individual persons' responses to consistently presented music experiences and that music selected for them be specific to their preferences.
Clair et al. (Thu,) studied this question.