The Effects of Piano Training on Auditory Processing, Cognition, and Everyday Function

Learning to play a musical instrument is commonly recommended to avoid cognitive decline and dementia, but experimental evidence is lacking. In this Keys to Staying Sharp study, we investigated the efficacy of piano training as compared to music listening instruction to improve auditory processing, cognition, and everyday function among older adults with and without mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Older adult participants with and without MCI (n=268) included 58% females; 16% identified as Black race and 8.2% reported Hispanic ethnicity. Education ranged from 11 to 20 years. Participants were randomly assigned to either piano training (n=133) or an active control group of music listening instruction (n=135). Group training sessions were led by an instructor for 90 min twice a week for 20 sessions. Measures of auditory processing (time compressed speech, words-in-noise, dichotic digits test, dichotic sentence identification, adaptive tests of temporal resolution), cognition (trail making test, digit coding, verbal fluency), and everyday function (timed instrumental activities of daily living, test of everyday attention) were administered at baseline and immediately post the intervention phase. Analyses were registered at Open Science Framework https://osf.io/sh27y/ on April 25, 2018. Relative to music listening, no significant effects of piano training on auditory processing, cognition, or everyday function were found (ps>0.265). Future research should continue to examine the connection of impaired auditory processing with subsequent dementia and investigate whether effectively enhancing auditory processing by intervention may reduce dementia risk.