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Effects of Binaural Beats and Spatialized Music on Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia in Assisted Living Facility Residents
Sponsor: Maharishi International University
Summary
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of Binaural Beat Music (BBM; personalized music playlist with binaural beats), Spatialized Music (SM; personalized and spatialized music playlist), their combination, and possible interaction on older adults in an assisted living community who are either living with a dementia diagnosis or are experiencing typical age-related changes. The control condition is a personalized music playlist without binaural beats and spatialization. It is hypothesized that BBM, SM, and their combination each improve aspects of BPSD compared to controls over a two-week intervention period. The Specific Aims of the study are (1) to evaluate whether BBM, SM, and/or their combination is superior to control in reducing BPSD severity (primary outcome); (2) to evaluate whether BBM, SM, and/or their combination is superior to control in reducing caregiver distress (secondary outcomes); and (3) to evaluate the effects of BBM, SM, and/or their combination on improving overall well-being and mood (secondary outcomes).
Official title: Effects of Binaural Beats and Spatialized Music on Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia in Assisted Living Facility Residents: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Protocol
Key Details
Gender
All
Age Range
55 Years - 95 Years
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Enrollment
120
Start Date
2026-05-04
Completion Date
2026-06-27
Last Updated
2026-06-04
Healthy Volunteers
No
Conditions
Interventions
Personalized Music Listening (PML)
A personlized music playlist is generated by an audio workstation based on text prompts describing prominent musical features for a chosen favourite genre and style. For each entry in the music playlist, acoustic features are extracted from the audio waveforms and higher-level perceptual features are derived that correlate with human emotional and physiological responses to music. A music playlist with a total duration of ±20 minutes is generated for each individual session based on the derived higher-level perceptual features. The selection and slope of a music playlist is adjusted for the time of day by considering the progression of extracted audio features, i.e., an upward slope to increase arousal for morning sessions (AM) and a downward slope to induce a calming effect for afternoon sessions (PM). PML sessions are administered using wireless noise-cancelling headphones and take place in a quiet room with comfortable seating for groups of up to 10 subjects at a time.
Binaural Beat Music (BBM)
BBM is the combination of pure tones with a variable carrier frequency embedded in the music playlist recordings. The carrier frequency is adaptive to the music it is combined with. A fixed 10 Hz difference between the carrier frequencies of the left and right headphone channels produces a perceived binaural beat frequency corresponding to an alpha brain-wave pattern associated with relaxation.
Spatialized Music (SM)
SM is the presentation of the music playlist such that vocal and instrumental stems are perceived as reverberating within a virtual space from different angles and positions relative to the subject. The music recordings are modified and rendered as a spatialized version using acoustic simulation software.
Locations (2)
Woodland Estates Senior Living
Denver, Colorado, United States
Woodlake Legacy Senior Living
Lakewood, Colorado, United States