Playing a musical instrument throughout life is associated with a lower risk of developing dementia.
Article continues below
This has been attributed to the ability of musical training and performance to increase the resiliency of the brain. Playing a musical instrument requires active engagement of a wide range of cognitive processes, including the sensory and motor systems.
"Data for the present study come from the Study of Dementia in Swedish Twins, known as HARMONY," M. Alison Balbag, Nancy L. Pedersen, and Margaret Gatz write.
"Case identification entailed a screening phase and clinical phase. All individuals from the population based Swedish Twin Registry (STR) aged 65 years and older and alive at baseline were eligible for screening from 1998 to 2001.
"Participants were invited to the clinical phase if they scored poorly on cognitive screening and were considered a suspect for dementia.
"Twin partners to dementia suspects were also invited to participate in the clinical phase for cotwin analyses. A complete clinical workup including neuroimaging was used to assess dementia in clinical phase participants. In HARMONY, 1713 individuals participated in the clinical phase and were either given a clinical diagnosis or confirmed to be intact cognitively.
"In the questionnaire, respondents were asked about the participant's experience of playing a musical instrument, if any. Questions included whether the participant played new and or familiar music, frequency of playing, and whether she he was still playing at time of assessment or stopped playing at a specific age.
"We included as musicians those participants who played new and or familiar music frequently and or occasionally at time of assessment.
"To minimize reverse causation and account for the fact that a lifelong player may have stopped playing because of dementia onset, we also deemed participants to be musicians if they stopped playing within five years prior to dementia onset.
"Controls were also required to play at least until five years of their cotwin's dementia onset to be included as a musician. In pairs where the case had cognitive impairment, age at clinical assessment was used in lieu of onset age for the aforementioned cutoff point. Sensitivity analyses were performed with wider than five year exclusion points. In the present study, there were no professional musicians.
"Given the cotwin design, our results support previous suggestions that differences observed between musicians and nonmusicians are likely due to music training not preexisting biological differences.
"Music processing is unique in that it necessitates a wide array of brain regions and functions simultaneously throughout both hemispheres.
"Controlling for sex, education, and physical activity, playing a musical instrument was significantly associated with less likelihood of dementia and cognitive impairment (odds ratio [OR] = 0.36 [95% confidence interval 0.13–0.99]). These findings support further consideration of music as a modifiable protective factor against dementia and cognitive impairment." ■