Soundscape Awareness Intervention Reduced Neuropsychiatric Symptoms in Nursing Home Residents With Dementia: A Cluster-Randomized Trial With MoSART

Objectives: Auditory environments as perceived by an individual, also called soundscapes, are often suboptimal for nursing home residents. Poor soundscapes have been associated with neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS). We evaluated the effect of the Mobile Soundscape Appraisal and Recording Technology sound awareness intervention (MoSART+) on NPS in nursing home residents with dementia.Design: A 15-month, stepped-wedge, cluster-randomized trial. Every 3 months, a nursing home switched from care as usual to the use of the intervention.Intervention: The 3-month MoSART+ intervention involved ambassador training, staff performing sound measurements with the MoSART application, meetings, and implementation of microinterventions. The goal was to raise awareness about soundscapes and their influence on residents. Setting and participants: We included 110 residents with dementia in 5 Dutch nursing homes. Exclusion criteria were palliative sedation and deafness.Methods: The primary outcome was NPS severity measured with the Neuropsychiatric Inventory -Nursing Home version (NPI-NH) by the resident's primary nurse. Secondary outcomes were quality of life (QUALIDEM), psychotropic drug use (ATC), staff workload (workload questionnaire), and staff job satisfaction (Maastricht Questionnaire of Job Satisfaction).Results: The mean age of the residents (n = 97) at enrollment was 86.5 +/- 6.7 years, and 76 were female (76.8%). The mean NPI-NH score was 17.5 +/- 17.3. One nursing home did not implement the intervention because of staff shortages. Intention-to-treat analysis showed a clinically relevant reduction in NPS between the study groups (-8.0, 95% CI -11.7, -2.6). There was no clear effect on quality of life [odds ratio (OR) 2.8, 95% CI -0.7, 6.3], psychotropic drug use (1.2, 95% CI 0.9, 1.7), staff workload (-0.3, 95% CI -0.3, 0.8), or staff job satisfaction (-0.2, 95% CI -1.2, 0.7). Conclusions and Implications: MoSART+ empowered staff to adapt the local soundscape, and the intervention effectively reduced staff-reported levels of NPS in nursing home residents with dementia. Nursing homes should consider implementing interventions to improve the soundscape.(c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of AMDA - The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Automated summary

This study evaluated the impact of the Mobile Soundscape Appraisal and Recording Technology intervention on neuropsychiatric symptoms in nursing home residents with dementia. By raising awareness among staff about the auditory environment and its influence on residents, the intervention successfully reduced NPS levels.