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A Case Study of a Practical Use of "MusiCuddle" that is a Music Therapy System for Patients with Dementia

Authors:
Chika Oshima
Naoki Itou
Kazushi Nishimoto
Kiyoshi Yasuda
Naohito Hosoi
Hiromi Yamashita
Koichi Nakayama
Etsuo Horikawa

Keywords: Music, Convert utterances into pitch.

Abstract:
In this paper, we conducted an experiment that an operator presented tunes using the ``MusiCuddle'' system to a patient with dementia who repeats utterances. MusiCuddle converted the patients' utterances into pitches (F0) at a predetermined interval. In response to an operator's simple key entry, the system automatically played tunes based on those pitches. This function may contribute to resonating with the patient's emotions on the basis of iso-principle that is one of rinciple of music therapy. In an experiment, we segmented a patient's utterances into sentences and compared her utterances when music was presented and was not presented. The results of the analysis showed that the sentences were uttered with music tended to include the word of the immediately previous sentence, as if she stutter out them. We thought that if a patient's attention could be captured by tunes, MusiCuddle could contribute to alleviating their symptoms.

Pages: 14 to 20

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2012

Publication date: October 21, 2012

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4553

ISBN: 978-1-61208-243-1

Location: Venice, Italy

Dates: from October 21, 2012 to October 26, 2012