Musical life review for the elderly with dementia as spiritual care—Clinical functions and roles of meaningful or memorable songs

• Two cases dealt with clients’ spiritual pain through musical life review (MLR).
• Outlines model of MLR and clinical application to clients with dementia.
• Music functioned as stimulus to trigger clients’ memories and emotional expressions.
• Music functioned as a medium to reflect the client's issues and life history.
• MLR can both recognize and help clients with dementia resolve their spiritual needs.

Life review with music activities such as singing and listening to clients’ meaningful or memorable songs is a commonly practiced technique in various clinical settings. In the current paper, two case studies of life review with two Japanese elderly women with dementia were presented. We used a theoretical framework called “Musical Life Review” model (Sato, 2011) to analyze the functions of clients’ meaningful or memorable songs used during life review sessions. Furthermore, we determined spiritual needs displayed by clients with Murata's theoretical model (Murata, 2003), which is intended to clarify the structure of spiritual pain. Clinical values and functional meanings of musical life review for people with dementia were also discussed.