Senses make sense: An individualized multisensory stimulation for dementia

Nonpharmacologic interventions have been recommended as first-line treatments for dementia, and multisensory stimulation environment has been used as a non-pharmacological treatment to dementia patients in the last decade. However, the clinical effect of multisensory stimulation environment remains temporary and uncertain. Individualized medicine has been suggested to hold great promise in medicine, and it should be equally important for dementia. Reminiscence integrating individual experiences into therapeutic schemes has shown potential in the field of improving cognitive functions and depressive symptoms for dementia patients, and interactive music also demonstrated a positive outcome by using individualized music for the hearing aspect. We therefore hypothesize that an individualized multisensory stimulation in a natural and realistic environment integrating personal experience may be an effective intervention for patients suffering from dementia.