Your Brain on Music: What Nurses Should Know About Music, Cognition, and Healthy Aging
Music Is More Than Entertainment
We often think of music as something we listen to for enjoyment. The brain, however, has a much more complicated relationship with it.
Listening to and participating in music can involve attention, memory, sensory processing, motor activity, language, and emotion. Musical engagement can also range from simply hearing a familiar song to actively singing, playing an instrument, or participating in years of musical training.
Researchers have studied these different levels of engagement to better understand how music interacts with cognition and how the brains of musicians and non-musicians may differ.
For healthcare professionals, that research opens an interesting door: Could music have a meaningful place in holistic patient care?
Why This Matters in an Aging Population
As the population ages, healthcare professionals are increasingly caring for patients experiencing cognitive changes and dementia.
That makes understanding cognitive reserve—and the factors that may help support cognitive function across the lifespan—particularly relevant.
It also creates greater interest in non-pharmacological approaches that can complement traditional patient care.
Music is one of those areas of study.
Rather than viewing music simply as background entertainment, healthcare professionals can benefit from understanding how the brain processes music, how different levels of musical engagement may affect cognition, and what current research suggests about music's potential role in supporting older adults.
What Happens When the Brain Engages With Music?
Not all musical experiences are the same.
There is a significant difference between passively hearing a song, intentionally listening to music, actively participating in music, and developing the skills of a professional musician.
Those differences matter when studying the brain.
Musical training has been associated with differences between musicians and non-musicians in areas including brain structure, sensory processing, auditory processing, and grey and white matter.
Music also provides a fascinating way to examine attention.
Following rhythm, recognizing patterns, anticipating what comes next, distinguishing sounds, and coordinating a response can require the brain to perform several tasks simultaneously.
Understanding those processes gives healthcare professionals another perspective on cognition and the remarkable adaptability of the human brain.
What Does This Mean at the Bedside?
Nursing care has never been limited to medications and procedures.
Nurses routinely consider comfort, environment, communication, mobility, emotional well-being, family involvement, and other factors that influence the whole patient.
Music can be considered through that same holistic lens.
For an older adult, thoughtfully selected music may provide another avenue for engagement and connection. Understanding the science behind music and cognition can help nurses think more critically about when and how non-pharmacological interventions may complement a patient's overall plan of care.
It isn't about replacing medical treatment with a playlist.
It's about understanding another potential tool available when caring for the whole person.
Earn CNE While Exploring Something Different
Continuing nursing education doesn't have to be limited to the subjects you expect to find in a CE catalog.
Pedagogy Education's Music and the Brain course takes nurses inside the science of music, attention, cognition, musical training, brain processing, and healthy aging.
The 1.5-contact-hour online course explores topics including:
- Music and cognition
- Music and attention
- Different levels of music engagement
- Professional musicianship and musical training
- How the brain processes music
- Differences observed between musicians and non-musicians
- Neuropsychological examination of music and cognition
- Music as a potential non-pharmacological intervention for older adults
The course is authored by Catherine Schneider, Ph.D., a gerontologist whose academic work included the study of non-pharmacological interventions for cognitive impairment.
Pedagogy Is More Than IV Education
You may know Pedagogy Education for IV therapy and infusion education.
But that's only part of what we do.
Pedagogy is a nationally accredited provider of online continuing nursing education, with courses recognized for CNE contact hours in all states.
Our goal is to give nurses access to education that doesn't simply fulfill a requirement. We want healthcare professionals to discover subjects that strengthen their knowledge, spark curiosity, and offer a new way of looking at the patients they care for.
Sometimes that means learning about vascular access.
Sometimes it means discovering what happens inside the human brain when someone hears a familiar song.
Ready to learn something unexpected?
Explore Music and the Brain and earn 1.5 CNE contact hours while discovering the fascinating relationship between music, cognition, and aging.
