Effect of music listening on hypertonia in neurologically impaired patients—systematic review

BACKGROUND: As music listening is able to induce self-perceived and physiological signs of relaxation, it might be an interesting tool to induce muscle relaxation in patients with hypertonia. To this date effective non-pharmacological rehabilitation strategies to treat hypertonia in neurologically impaired patients are lacking. Therefore the aim is to investigate the effectiveness of music listening on muscle activity and relaxation. METHODOLOGY: The search strategy was performed by the PRISMA guidelines and registered in the PROSPERO database (no. 42019128511). Seven databases were systematically searched until March 2019. Six of the 1,684 studies met the eligibility criteria and were included in this review. Risk of bias was assessed by the PEDro scale. In total 171 patients with a variety of neurological conditions were included assessing hypertonia with both clinicall and biomechanical measures. RESULTS: The analysis showed that there was a large treatment effect of music listening on muscle performance (SMD 0.96, 95% CI [0.29–1.63], I(2) = 10%, Z = 2.82, p = 0.005). Music can be used as either background music during rehabilitation (dual-task) or during rest (single-task) and musical preferences seem to play a major role in the observed treatment effect. CONCLUSIONS: Although music listening is able to induce muscle relaxation, several gaps in the available literature were acknowledged. Future research is in need of an accurate and objective assessment of hypertonia.