SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Neurorehabilitation
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2025.1679881
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Human Neuroscience of Music Therapy in Neurodegenerative DiseasesView all 6 articles
Effectiveness and Applications of Neurologic Music Therapy in Motor and Non-Motor Rehabilitation for Older Adults with Parkinson's Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Provisionally accepted
- Wuhan Conservatory of Music, Wuhan, China
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In the conclusion of the abstract, the original sentence "Moderate-quality evidence supports NMT, particularly RAS, as a safe and well-tolerated adjunctive intervention that enhances gait, balance, and motor function in older adults with Parkinson's disease" was revised to: "The available evidence suggests that NMT, especially RAS, shows moderate effects in improving gait speed and stride length, with relatively consistent support across studies. However, findings on cadence remain limited and are characterized by high heterogeneity. With respect to balance, pooled analyses indicated a possible mild benefit, but this effect was highly sensitive to specific studies and failed to remain statistically significant. Overall, therefore, the evidence for balance outcomes appears weak and somewhat inconsistent." (2) In the conclusion of the abstract, the original sentence "NMT may also improve quality of life, cognitive function, and emotional well-being" was revised to: "With respect to quality of life and emotional well-being, the currently available quantitative evidence is both scarce and somewhat inconsistent. It can only suggest a potential benefit in a preliminary sense, and the conclusion is far from solid. More rigorously designed and higher-quality RCTs are urgently needed to confirm these findings." (1) We have revised the conclusion in the abstract accordingly. As already explained in our responses to the reviewer's first and second comments, we repeat the adjusted sentence here for clarity: "The available evidence suggests that NMT, especially RAS, shows moderate effects in improving gait speed and stride length, with relatively consistent support across studies. However, findings on cadence remain limited and are characterized by high heterogeneity. With respect to balance, pooled
Keywords: Neurologic Music Therapy (NMT), Parkinson ' s disease, Motor symptoms, Non-motor symptom, Geriatric reabilitation unit, Meta - analysis
Received: 05 Aug 2025; Accepted: 06 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Yang, Jiang, Wu and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Aoyi Li, aoyili555@163.com
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