An accompaniment system for healing emotions of patients with dementia who repeat stereotypical utterances

Abstract

Our research aim is that even caregivers who are musical novices perform part of a music therapy activity. In this paper, we present an accompaniment system for calming the symptoms of patients with dementia with mental instability who repeat stereotypical behaviors and utterances. This system converts patients' utterances into pitches in response to an operator's key entry and automatically plays a cadence based on those pitches. The cadence begins on a chord that resonates with a patient's emotions and finishes on a chord that calms his symptoms. Because the use of this system is simple, even musical novices can use it to calm dementia patients' continuous stereotypical utterances. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.