Author(s)

Töres Theorell^1,2, Gabriella Engstrom³, Azita Emami^4,5

¹Division of Global Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
²Stress Research Institute, Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
³School of Health and Welfare, Dalarna University, Falun, Sweden.
⁴Division of Occupational Therapy, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences, and Society, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
⁵Yale School of Nursing, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.

Non-pharmacological interventions for improved home care of persons with dementia and their family caregiver are and will be increasingly important for society. A music intervention study was performed on persons with persons with dementia and family caregiver. The persons with dementia and family caregiver were instructed to choose a daily routine for joint listening to recorded music. They selected the music they were interested in from a menu. The intervention period lasted for two months. Both persons with dementia and family caregiver provided daily saliva samples for the assessment of stress-related steroid hormones. In previous reports we have reported that the morning cortisol levels decreased significantly among the family caregiver when the intervention group was compared to a control group. In the present study we report narratives from four dyads, two of whom with beneficial effects of the music intervention, one dyad with no clear beneficial effects and one dyad with mixed results. The narratives illustrate the strong cohesive effect that the joint music listening could have, leading to improved social functioning paralleled by decreased morning cortisol levels particularly in the family caregiver. The narratives also illustrate reasons for failed effects.

Dementia, Family Caregivers, Music, Stress, Saliva Morning Cortisol

Theorell, T. , Engstrom, G. and Emami, A. (2024) How Music Intervention Lowered Participants’ Morning Cortisol—Qualitative Case Stories. Case Reports in Clinical Medicine, 13, 193-206. doi: 10.4236/crcm.2024.136022.