The year-long programme involved 72 inpatients aged 65 or older. Each patient got a personalised playlist of songs they loved when they were younger, which they listened to four times a day for 30 minutes at a time.
Dr Yip Wai-man, Chief of Service for the Department of Medicine and Geriatrics at Tai Po Hospital, said the familiar melodies proved to be effective in calming patients down, noting that seniors with cognitive impairments are often easily agitated due to age-related decline.
While doctors traditionally rely on medication to manage agitation, Yip said the trial shows music can also play a role.
“Firstly, there’s no adverse outcome. At least we haven’t heard of any patient showing any dislike of the music that we’ve chosen,” he said.
“Most of the time, these sorts of patients need to be prescribed drugs for sleep or to soothe their agitating emotion.
“But after the scheme, 17 out of some 70 patients were able to lower down the so-called on-demand drug, particularly the sleeping pills.”
Overall, more than 60 percent of participants showed reduction in agitation compared to before the trial, he added.
Yip said four 30-minute sessions each day is just enough, but any longer may be too much of a good thing.
“If we give the music too much, probably it will end up with a kind of a blunting effect,” he said.
“We just want to make it as a kind of a repeated dosage, as a kind of a drug.”
In the long run, he added, the initiative could be used at accident and emergency departments at other hospitals.