The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of music therapy
using folk song and rhythm on the improvement of cognitive function for
elderly people with dementia. 34 elderly people (7 males and 27 females) over
the age of 70 diagnosed with dementia in a daycare center located in S-gu,
Seoul City were selected as subjects. 17 elderly people were randomly
assigned to the experimental and control groups. The music therapy consisted
of a total of 16 sessions from January 2, 2012 to February 28, 2012. Each
session was performed for 45 minutes twice a week. The experiment was
carried out through the pretest-posttest control group design, and the
effectiveness of music therapy was measured with K-MMSE(Korean-Mini
Mental State Examination). The results showed that the experimental groups
improved in the cognitive areas of orientation, memory, concentration,
calculative ability and verbal ability, which were statistically significant in
paired t-test. The significant differences in overall cognitive functions
between two groups were verified through independent t-test(p<.05). These
results demonstrate that the music therapy using folk song and rhythm
played a significant role for elderly people with dementia.