Relationship quality is important for well-being and quality of life in couples living with dementia. Home-based music therapy interventions may be conducted with the aim of enhancing relationship quality. However, the effects or influences of such interventions are only briefly investigated in previous studies. This study’s aim was to identify how a 12-week home-based music therapy intervention may influence relationship quality in couples living with dementia, through an adapted convergent mixed methods design. In this case, 68 participating couples from the HOMESIDE RCT study, and four individually recruited couples, received the music therapy intervention. Relationship quality for all participants was measured by the standardized Quality of Caregiver-Patient Relationship scale, and qualitative interviews were conducted with the four individually recruited participants at baseline and post intervention. Quantitative analysis indicated no statistically significant intervention effect. However, relationship quality remained stable over the intervention period. The qualitative analysis identified that the music therapy interventions primarily led to positive emotions, closeness, intimacy, and communication between the persons with dementia and their care partners. Intervention influences could also be ambiguous, as sharing music experiences might involve a risk of evoking vulnerabilities or negative emotional responses.

The current standards of care of the older person recommend employing non-pharmacological approaches to challenges, including safe approaches to managing pain and stress, enhancing symptom relief, and fostering independent lifestyles with the highest quality of life possible. More research is needed to enable nurses and other medical staff to use singing and music-based interventions, to access singing-based programmes, and promote a greater use of choirs in nursing homes. A solid basis of positive experiences and feedback through evidence in practice is required to help promote support for such activities. To identify, explore and describe experiences, attitudes, beliefs, issues, processes and changes among nurses, carers and leaders in reference to implementation of the educational programme ‘Singing Nursing Homes’, Norway. To increase knowledge and understanding of how an educational song programme could become an integral part of nursing practice and quality of care in nursing and care homes, and identify why this would be constructive. Since its inception in 2015, ‘Singing Norway’ wanted to offer a professional, evidence-based programme for nursing homes throughout the country. A longitudinal, qualitative and explorative approach. In-depth interviews and focus group interviews of female employees (n = 19) from three nursing homes in Norway, 2018. Nursing home employees perceived singing to have potential benefits for their patients, such as reducing uneasiness, increased comfort, well-being and joy, improved sleep, and believed singing had the potential to reduce the need for medication and prevent accidents among their patients. By facilitating opportunities for learning and practice, staff in nursing homes were able to use singing as part of their ‘art of caring’, enhancing environmental care for the older person. Singing was found to have positive effects for the patients, their relatives and the staff, which improved the psychosocial working climate overall. Singing interventions could be a vital component for the enhancement of health, well-being and quality of life for the patients and staff in nursing homes.

Aim: The aim of this systematic review is to identify factors that influence relationship quality in couples living with dementia. Previous research has shown how maintaining a positive spousal relationship quality is important for quality of life and coping for both the caregiver and the person with dementia. Knowledge of influential factors could contribute to a deeper understanding of the value of a couple-centred clinical practice and research, within the field of dementia. Research design and methods: Systematic procedures to database search, screening, data extraction and synthesis were followed. Qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods studies were included. A narrative synthesis was conducted through narrative summaries of included studies, thematic analysis and narrative descriptions of factors influencing relationship quality. Results: 39 studies were included in the study: 28 qualitative, 8 quantitative and 3 mixed methods. Through the narrative synthesis, 20 factors were identified. The factors were grouped into two overarching themes: The world of us and The world outside of us, and further to six influencing factor categories: (1) Attitudes and strategies, (2) Behaviour and activities, (3) Emotional connectedness, (4) Activities and experiences outside of the home, (5) Social behaviour and roles, and (6) Belonging and safety. Discussion and conclusion: The identified factors influence relationship quality in couples living with dementia on various levels. The findings of this review study should inform clinical, couple-centred dementia care practise and intervention studies, and further research should seek to gain deeper understandings of the individual factors and broader understandings of the correlations between factors.

Tidligere og pågående studier med personer med demens der sang og musikk inngår antar effekt og positive tendenser på symptomer og livskvalitet hos personer med demens. Behovet for dokumentasjon er fortsatt til stede. Denne studien er en pilot og undersøker korsang med personer med demens, gjennomført med tolv deltakere over en periode på åtte uker. Koret studien forsker på er del av en fjernsynsdokumentarproduksjon. Studien har som mål å bekrefte/avkrefte tidligere funn og tendenser knyttet til effekt av korsang på symptomer og livskvalitet for personer med demens. I studien gjennomførte vi standardiserte skjemabaserte målinger på adferdsmessige og psykologiske symptomer på demens, depresjon, apati, livskvalitet og humør. Resultatene viser tendenser som bekrefter tidligere funn, på samtlige målinger. En av målingene, Dementia Mood Picture Test, viser signifikant effekt på bedret humør hos kordeltakerne etter hver korøvelse sammenlignet med målinger gjort før øvelsene. De andre målingene viser ingen negative endringer. I sum er resultatene gode, og det er grunn til å tro at en styrkeberegnet oppfølgingsstudie med intervensjoner gjennomført med flere deltakere over lenger tid, og sammenlignet med en kontrollgruppe, vil kunne påvise signifikant effekt på flere av målingene. En kritikk er at resultatene kanskje vil kunne se annerledes ut når kordeltakelse gjennomføres utenfor rammene av en omfattende fjernsynsproduksjon. Det er også behov for å se om kvalitative data kan utfylle noen av de positive, men likevel begrensede, funnene i studien.

Disruptions, i.e. things or events that interrupt the normal or expected, may be experienced as something positive, but also as something negative. They are an integral part of clinical trials, often representing ethical challenges. As researchers, we are the agents of disruption: we intervene in participants’ lives by implementing interventions and collecting data; we engage stakeholders and ask colleagues for support. How do these disruptions affect the researchers themselves? In this study, we explore disruptions from a researcher’s perspective in a qualitative self-study of our experiences while working together on an international randomised controlled trial. The data comprises qualitative interviews with us, the music therapy research team in the Norwegian partner institution of the trial. The interviews were analysed using a collaborative reflexive thematic analysis. Four themes, representing different types of disruption and qualities in our experiences of them, were identified: background noise, rejection, empathic disruption, and disruptive dissonance. These themes share the characteristics of being relational, sometimes ambiguous, and influencing each other, requiring interpretation in context. This complexity makes them challenging to define and navigate. We argue that continuous reflection on different disruptions and negotiation of their boundaries are vital to ensure high ethical research standards and to support researchers’ self-care.