Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia

For viewers with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease and/or dementia, KOMITOMS Programming offers a forum of support for the following: 

• Socialization: KOMITOMS facilitates opportunities for social engagement in group and dyadic music experiences.

• Behavior Regulation: Individuals with AD experience loss of ADL’s (Activities of Daily Living) and progressive cognitive impairment and neuropsychiatric symptoms that may contribute to wandering, falls, agitation, and aggression.

  • Studies show music can reduce agitation and improve behavioral issues associated with middle-stage Alzheimer’s. Music, in combination with other activities such as singing, dancing, playing instruments, rhythmic movements, have the potential to improve cognitive status and alleviate neuropsychiatric symptoms of AD patients. Music activities may also hold potential to reduce anxiety, delirium, hallucinations, agitation, irritability, and language disorders in viewers with AD.

• Connection: Music promotes a forum for connection, self-expression, and creativity, even after verbal communication may be gone.

• Identity and Awareness: Preferred and familiar music and shared listening promotes reconnection to sense of identity and self-awareness.

• Reality Orientation and Grounding: Music interrupted by commercials can cause confusion and agitation for individuals with AD. By streamlining content, this program integrates introductions, breaks, and pacing to orient the viewer to follow along and cope through moments of transition.

• Cognition: KOMITOMS music interventions can reduce cognitive decline, especially in autobiographical and episodic memories, psychomotor speed, executive function domains, and global cognition. 

• Coordination: Combination activities to integrate music with physical coordination and rhythm activities promotes resource and strength-building, orientation, and decreased fall risk.

• Memory: Studies show music with an emotional component is most effective in activation of recall and one study showed sad songs are especially effective in retrieval of autobiographical recall and remote memories. 

• Recall: Separation of musical elements like rhythm and melody promote recall and integration to stimulate putting verbal elements together.

• Endorphins: Some studies suggest that music promotes several neurotransmitters, neuropeptides and other biochemical mediators to release, such as endorphins, endocannabinoids, dopamine and nitric oxide, supporting the outcome that music took part in the reward, stress and arousal, immunity, and social affiliation systems of the human beings.

• Enhanced Quality of Life: KOMITOMS offers music resources designed with goals and objectives to reduce cognitive decline, improve neuropsychiatric symptoms, and enhance the QoL in viewers. Researchers have demonstrated that music therapy can protect cognition of individuals with Alzheimer’s Disease, especially autobiographical and episodic memories, psychomotor speed, executive function, and global cognition. KOMITOMS Programming offers a platform for initial engagement with therapeutically-oriented activities for individuals experiencing dementia and AD. 

• Attention: KOMITOMS music offer opportunities to improve attention, psychomotor speed, memory, orientation and executive functions for individuals impacted by AD

• Social: KOMITOMS activities and supplemental materials offer a forum for social engagement with family members, loved ones, and caregivers of those impacted by AD through fun, creative, and expressive opportunities.