HOMESIDE: A home-based music intervention for people with dementia v1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
HOMESIDE: A home-based family caregiver-delivered music intervention for people living with dementia: a randomised controlled trial
IRAS ID
260067
Contact name
Helen Odell-Miller
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Anglia Ruskin University
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
ACTRN12618001799246p, Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry number; 1852845, University of Melbourne Education, Fine Arts, Music & Business Human Ethics Sub-Committee
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Our project aims to address the need for improved informal dementia care by training family caregivers to use music activities with the person they are caring for. The music programme aims to reduce behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia as well as improve quality of life and well-being for both people living with dementia and their caregivers.
Our study is a three-arm parallel-group randomised controlled trial, which means that participants will be assigned to the music programme, a reading programme or normal care (without additional reading or music). Additionally, we will seek to find out the cost-effectiveness of using music activities within caregiving for people with dementia. We will have 495 couples (living-in caregivers and people with dementia) across 5 countries participate in our project. Couples assigned to the music or reading programme will be given three 2-hour training sessions on either music or reading activities. They will be asked to use the activities with the person they are caring for 5x weekly for 3 months.
Information will be collected before, during and after the programme, using a variety of assessment measures as well as interviews and diaries kept by the caregivers about how they use the activities.
We believe that there will be an improvement in behavioural and psychological symptoms for participants with dementia who are engaged with the music activities with their caregiver, as compared with the reading activities or normal care. We believe that quality of life and well-being will improve for participants who take part in the music programme and that it will minimise additional costs associated with living with dementia and informal caregiving.
REC name
East of England - Essex Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/EE/0177
Date of REC Opinion
26 Jul 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion