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Determining Musical Preferences In Persons With Dementia: Comparing Caregiver Options To Stimulus Preference Assessment, Eva Christine Igler

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The music therapy literature supports the use of individualized music in order to reduce problem behaviors among individuals with moderate to severe dementia; however, these interventions frequently rely on family members and/or staff to choose preferred music. Family members and caregivers are often inaccurate when choosing preferred stimuli for cognitively impaired individuals. The purpose of this study was to determine if family members and caregivers could accurately identify the preferred music of individuals with dementia. A single stimulus preference assessment was used to empirically determine preferred music and then these results were compared to family member and caregiver rankings. The …