Asynchrony within Sessions in Improvised Active Music Therapy with Individuals with Parkinson’s Disease

This study investigates the dispersity of asynchrony measures within Improvised Active Music Therapy (IAMT) sessions for individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Three right-handed participants with PD played a simplified electronic drum-set during multiple improvisation sessions (average 22.2 minutes per), accompanied by a music therapist on acoustic guitar. Musical content was converted into Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) data, segmented into 25 intervals (53.28 seconds per segment), and analyzed for asynchrony dispersity. The downward trend in mean asynchrony in segments 1 - 7 suggests shifts in timing magnitude for participants and music therapists, possibly due to engagement, followed by fluctuations in segments 8 - 25 indicating motor variability or fatigue. The music therapist’s asynchrony showed a slight upward trend and significant positive correlations with participants’ asynchrony. Despite a small sample size, these findings offer insights into IAMT’s therapeutic mechanisms for PD, with implications for motor synchronization. Further research is needed to identify common asynchrony patterns in larger PD cohorts.