The role of language and music in dementia among the Chinese population

Ivan Yifan ZOU, Steve Ka Hong WONG, and William Shi-Yuan WANG, Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Dementia is now an increasingly serious problem which is plaguing a large body of population around the world. While this problem has been set great store by the western academia, it is much less investigated in the Chinese populations. The aging population contributed by the Chinese population is estimated to be remarkably large, which makes such inadequacy more pressing than before.  

The aims of the paper are three-fold: 1) to provide a meta-analysis of the dementia research targeting on the Chinese population and to compare the difference in dementia prevalence reported in various literatures, and explore the potential reasons why such difference exists; 2) to call attention to the culture bias in both the dementia screening instruments and diagnostic criteria, especially when they are adopted in the Chinese population. For the screening instruments, the research provides a thorough review of different culture biases in different versions of MMSE and MoCA and to make suggestion for a better reliability for then; 3) to make clear the role of language and music in the treatment of dementia and how speech and music therapy can benefit the Chinese population.

The potential significance of the paper is 1) to provide a thorough meta-analysis of all the existent dementia prevalence study targeting on the Chinese population in an exhaustive manner; 2) Provide probably the most thorough summary of the risk factors in dementia, with including bilingualism as the risk factors for the 1st time; 3) comparative studies have been made for the screening tools, but very little study does the same thing for diagnostic criteria. The paper not only discuss the screening and diagnosis separately but also pay attention to the more culture-neutral tools such as RUDAS & CASI as well as criteria such as 10/66; 4) point out the “vicious circle” in the study of music therapies for the dementia patients: music is not treated with enough scientific seriousness. A general picture in this academic area is that so long as a certain piece of music in a certain genre works, no further examination into the music will be made. Unfortunately, it is not a all's-well-that-ends-well Shakespeare’s play, many scientific questions should be made, such as: if it is the Jazz music works, why don’t other genres of music (classical music, rock, Chinese guqin and etc.) work? Is it because the melodic or rhythmic structure in it? What specific type of melodic line or rhythmic structure should the music therapists design? Are there any rules for the therapist to follow? Questions like these are essential towards a better understanding the nature and the power of the music in dementia, however, very little literature has even touched upon them. 5) music therapies are abundant, however, little has been adopted for the specific benefit of people with dementia. The paper not only provides a comprehensive review for the neurologic music therapies for the elderly people, but also proposes the potential integration of MIT into the therapy for dementia. 6) So far, little literature, even for those review articles, focus simultaneously on dementia prevalence, risk factors in dementia, screening and diagnosis, treatment and therapies. The merit of integrating this line of research is that it does not only provide a general picture of dementia, but also makes a nice tracking of all the stages a dementia patient might experience.