Individualized music for people with dementia

INTERVENTION: Participants are randomly allocated to an intervention or a control group. Over a period of 6 weeks, the intervention group participants will listen to their individualized music playlist through headphones every other day for 20 minutes in the presence of employees of the nursing home or project staff. Observation of behavior will be conducted by the project staff every other week for 60 minutes before, during and after the music intervention. The control group receives standard care. The observation of behavior will be conducted with the same frequency and duration as in the intervention group. External assessments by the nursing staff will be conducted at four assessment points regarding well‐being, social participation, problem behavior, and daily behavior of the people with dementia. baseline (6 weeks before treatment), pretest, posttest, follow‐up (6 weeks after the treatment) CONDITION: Dementia ; Mental and Behavioural Disorders ; Unspecified dementia PRIMARY OUTCOME: 1. Quality of life: ; 1.1. External assessment by the nursing staff at all four assessment points: mood, sleep quality, social participation (assessed with a visual analogue scale, based on Wilz & Soellner, 2015), depressive symptoms (assessed with the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia, CSDD); 1.2. Observation of behavior will be conducted three times during the intervention period using an adapted rating scale: emotional and motor changes (facial expression, body movement, other (positive) reactions), activation regarding social participation; ; 2.Problem behavior: ; 2.1. External assessment by the nursing staff at all four assessment points: resistance to care (assessed with a visual analogue scale, based on Wilz & Soellner, 2015), problem behavior/behavioral syndromes (assessed with the Cohen‐Mansfield Agitation Inventory (CMAI) and the Nurses Observation Scale for Geriatric Patients (NOSGER II); 2.2. Observation of behavior (see above): appearance of problem behavior or other negative reactions; ; Measured at baseline (6 weeks before treatment), pretest, posttest, follow‐up (6 weeks after the treatment) SECONDARY OUTCOME: Acceptance and applicability of the intervention measured using a self‐developed questionnaire at posttest INCLUSION CRITERIA: 1. Diagnosis of dementia 2. Living in institutional care 3. Informed consent provided by the participants themselves, their relatives or their conservator