Videos, Music on Tablets Boost Moods of People With Dementia and Caregivers

A pilot study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) School of Pharmacy published in JMIR Formative Research found tablets loaded with apps for photos, music, and video like YouTube can improve the moods of people with dementia, reports UW-Madison News . Caregivers successfully tailored subjects' interactions, and enjoyed related benefits. The researchers teamed with Generation Connect, a company that develops mobile software for home care use. Generation Connect staff trained caregivers to develop personalized tablet sessions in 2017 and 2018, and requested that they rate care recipients' moods before and after using the tablet across more than 1,000 sessions. Interventions were mainly carried out in skilled nursing communities or in caregivers or recipients' private homes. Most recipients ended the sessions in a positive mood, with music and YouTube the apps most strongly correlating with improving or maintaining positive moods. Multiple approaches, like playing music then viewing family photos, also were associated with positive moods. "One of the things the tablet allows you to do is to bring all those non-pharmacological approaches together so they can be offered through one device," noted UW-Madison Professor Jay Ford.