REVIEW Musical intervention for patients with dementia: a meta-analysis Ieva Vasionyt _ e and Guy Madison Aims and objectives. To provide a meta-analysis of the effects of music interventions on patients with dementia, separating, for the first time, between different types of interventions and different outcome measures, namely affective, behavioural, cognitive and physiological. Background. Music therapy is an attractive form of intervention for the growing number of demented patients, for whom pharmacological interventions are not always effective and may lead to undesired side effects. While music is more fre- quently applied in clinical settings for each year, no meta-analysis has considered effects of music interventions on affective, behavioural, cognitive and physiological outcomes separately. Design. A standard meta-analysis approach was applied. Methods. We include all original studies found for the key words music and dementia. Mean effect sizes and confidence intervals are computed from study effect sizes according to standard methods, and these are considered for various common types of music interventions separately. Results. Nineteen studies with a total of 478 dementia patients exhibit effect sizes ranging from 0Á04–4Á56 (M = 1Á04). Many of these indicate large positive effects on behavioural, cognitive and physiological outcome measures, and medium effects on affective measures. Conclusions. Music interventions seem to be effective and have the potential of increasing the quality of life for patients with dementia. Many studies in this area suffer from poor methodological quality, which limits the reach of meta-analysis and the strength and generalisability of these conclusions. Relevance to clinical practice. Being inexpensive and largely without adverse side effects, current knowledge seems to indicate that music interventions can be recommended for patients in all stages of dementia. Key words: affective, behaviour, clinical practice, cognitive functioning, dementia, emotion, meta-analysis, music, music therapy, treatment effects Accepted for publication: 6 November 2012 Introduction Music therapy is today a widespread treatment for a wide range of psychological, psychiatric and physical conditions. It is defined as ‘a therapeutic medium to address developmental, adaptive and rehabilitative goals in the areas of psychosocial, cognitive and sensorimotor behaviour of individuals with disabilities’ (Hallam et al. 2009). Music therapy can be described as using musical elements (sound, rhythm, melody and harmony) by a qualified music thera- pist, with a client or group, in a process designed to facilitate and promote therapeutic objectives mentioned above (Vink et al. 2004). The profession music therapist was established in 1950. Music therapy and other music interventions such as music listening are widely used both as alternative and as supplementary to pharmacological treatments. Authors: Ieva Vasionyt _ e, BSc, Master’s Student, Faculty of Philoso- phy, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania; Guy Madison, PhD, Professor, Department of Psychology, Ume  a University, Ume  a, Sweden Correspondence: Guy Madison, Professor, Department of Psychology, Ume  a University, Ume  a, Sweden. Telephone: +46-90-7866401. E-mail: guy.madison@psy.umu.se This article is partly based on a Bachelor Thesis: ‘Effect of Musical Interven- tion in the Treatment of Behavioral, Psychological and Cognitive Problems in Patients with Dementia’ (2011), Ume  a University, Umea, Sweden. © 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Journal of Clinical Nursing, 22, 1203–1216, doi: 10.1111/jocn.12166 1203