Feasibility of Pitch and Rhythm Musical Distortions as Cueing Method for People with Dementia in AR Cognitive Stimulation Tasks

We developed a new cueing system that capitalises on the spared musical processing abilities of people with dementia. We studied the cueing efficacy by testing different musical distortions (pitch, rhythm, and pitch-rhythm) while using different augmented reality-based interaction modalities in multiple cognitive stimulation tasks. A total of 18 volunteers participated in this study (8 with non-organic dementia) caused by substance abuse, such as alcoholism (control group) and 10 with organic dementia such as Alzheimer's disease (experimental group). We evaluated their performance using three augmented reality tasks: (1) a Knowledge Quiz activity, which is a general quiz knowledge game, (2) a Search Objects activity, which is a game that involves finding hidden images using a virtual magnifying glass and (3) an Association activity, which consists of a categorisation task. A within-subject experimental design has been used so that all participants could be exposed to distortions and activities. Results show that (1) participants, in general, were faster in completing the activities using rhythm and pitch distortions than non-distortion condition; (2) the experimental group reacted to the sound throughout the activities and, therefore, mitigating erroneous decision making; (3) despite the experimental group reacted to the distortions, the control group had better performance in the search and association activities and (4) music distortions compensated dementia related deficits, such as age, schooling and cognitive state. The results suggest that this novel cueing approach can improve people's performance with organic dementia and, more specifically, that such people can effectively process and exploit musical distortions.