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Maintaining sense of self in dementia through music therapy: personal, social, and cultural identity
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Maintaining sense of self in dementia through music therapy: personal, social, and cultural identity

Jonathan Painter
Master of Arts (M.A.), Drexel University
Jun 2019
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17918/51kk-4v18
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Abstract

Music therapy Identity (Psychology) Dementia Older People
Music provides a link to our personal identity, as well as community and cultural dimensions of our lives. While people with dementia may gradually experience loss of personal identity, music has been shown to assist in accessing autobiographical and episodic memory. Musical preferences, most apparent in adolescence and early adulthood, have been linked to age, musical training, culture, cognition, and social groups. Music therapy offers opportunities for active/expressive and passive/listening experiences, providing a vehicle for recall of defining life events that helped to shape identity and sense of self. Utilizing preferred music may assist the person with dementia in reconnecting with social and cultural identity, as musical preferences develop contextually. Music therapy literature and clinical vignettes describe a basis for theoretically informed clinical approaches based upon human development, sense of self through the lifespan, and relevance to quality of life for persons with dementia. Recommendations will be made for culturally sensitive music therapy assessment, treatment planning, and implementation for recall of personal and sociocultural life events in the preservation of sense of self.

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