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Arts & Communication Music therapy and elderly people in home care

both within and between the groups, making it challenging scale showed significance: communication-language
to compare them based on diagnoses. The intervention and total. These results are presented in Tables 1 and 2,
group included eight women and two men, while the final which include all the evaluated domains, as well as in
control group consisted of six women and two men. Figures 1 and 2, displaying domains with statistically
To analyze the group matching at the beginning of significant results. These findings demonstrate more
the research, the Mann–Whitney test was performed. significant improvements in the patients who received the
music therapy intervention.
Both groups were found to be well-matched (P ≤ 0.05) in
terms of age, gender, and most of the domains evaluated 4. Discussion
by IMTAP and SEMPA, including the total scores on
these scales. The only exceptions were the Musicality and Although the research groups were not randomly divided,
Fine Motricity domains of IMTAP, which did not show a statistical analysis revealed that the control and intervention
significant match (P > 0.05). groups were matched in the initial condition across 13 of
the 15 evaluated domains and subdomains. Non-matching
Good inter-rater correlation was observed, with was observed only in the domains of Musicality and Fine
a significance level of P ≤ 0.001, Spearman’s Rho Motricity within the IMTAP scale. It is worth noting that
exceeding 0.6 in all subscales (moderate correlation the presence of patients with higher music scores in the
coefficient), and surpassing 0.7 in 14 subscales (strong intervention group might have contributed to the predictive
correlation coefficient), with an average coefficient power of improvement through music therapy treatment.
of 0.784. These results indicate that the two evaluators had Thus, future research could benefit from randomizing the
similar perceptions during the assessments, even without allocation of the subjects into the control and intervention
direct contact. groups to ensure matching across all evaluated domains
and subdomains, potentially mitigating gender bias as well.
3.2. Differences between initial and final conditions
The diversity of diagnoses, and in some cases, the absence
When analyzing samples related to the initial and final of specific diagnoses, prevented the correlation analysis
evaluation for each group (Wilcoxon test), significance was and prediction of improvement within this construct. This
observed at P ≤ 0.05 for 11 subscales in the intervention complexity also posed challenges in discussing the relation
group. Of these, eight are related to IMTAP: wide motor to limited cognitive improvement in the studied groups.
skills, oral motor skills, receptive communication/auditory Such diversity may be inherent to the population receiving
perception, expressive communication, musicality, home health care, making it a challenge for professionals
emotional skills, self-knowledge, and total; and three for in this field. Addressing this challenge might require larger
SEMPA: communication-language, social-emotional, and sample sizes or a more careful selection of diagnoses in
total. In the control group, only two subscales of the SEMPA future research with a similar purpose.

Table 1. Comparison of scores between the initial and final IMTAP assessments in the control and intervention groups
Domain Control group (n=8) Intervention group (n=10)
Initial assessment Final assessment P‑value Initial assessment Final assessment P‑value
(average % [SD]) (average % [SD]) (average % [SD]) (average % [SD])
Oral motor skill 63.33 (30.78) 71.87 (29.44) 0.062 78.33 (15.90) 90.00 (11.67) 0.018*
Wide motor skill 60.66 (36.08) 60.34 (37.75) 0.092 80.66 (16.09) 90.60 (9.49) 0.017*
Fine motor skill 72.82 (28.89) 63.14 (40.50) 0.674 92.53 (13.06) 95.71 (6.27) 0.500
Sensorial 38.33 (27.94) 45.83 (29.75) 0.196 65.00 (36.86) 71.67 (26.92) 1.000
Cognitive 63.86 (29.84) 63.39 (38.08) 0.326 79.43 (23.70) 85.00 (18.26) 0.115
Receptive communication 61.30 (31.58) 57.71 (36.04) 0.865 77.44 (27.26) 85.10 (23.44) 0.050*
Expressive communication 81.32 (20.26) 68.42 (32.55) 0.249 82.75 (26.18) 89.99 (23.47) 0.046*
Musicality 59.28 (20.38) 60.63 (27.58) 0.233 76.25 (24.93) 88.25 (11.78) 0.010*
Social 78.29 (24.86) 73.22 (30.98) 0.575 88.83 (17.35) 92.74 (12.85) 0.051
Emotional 77.50 (18.37) 68.75 (36.98) 0.596 77.50 (30.00) 95.00 (15.00) 0.026*
Self-knowledge 63.83 (35.73) 56.56 (44.60) 0.752 72.67 (31.44) 83.34 (29.40) 0.013*
Total 66.65 (26.28) 63.05 (34.16) 0.889 81.02 (20.99) 88.87 (15.21) 0.005*
Notes: N: Number of research subjects; SD: Standard deviation; *P≤0.05. IMTAP: Individualized Music Therapy Assessment Profile.

Volume 1 Issue 2 (2023) 5 https://doi.org/10.36922/ac.0396