The purpose of this research is to focus on effects of piano learning or piano performance on
the mental health status of healthy elderly people who had taken piano lessons as students, and to
make clear the longitudinal effect of piano learning and/or piano performance.
Four healthy elderly subjects took piano lessons by professional piano teachers for 3 months (8
times), and they practiced themselves for 3 months.We assessed the level of mental health status
by determining tendency of depression with using CES-D scores, QOL(SF-8), and surveyed the
awareness rating by the interview survey with using HDS-R. These research were implemented
twice, before the piano lesson starts and 3 months later. Accordingly, the average mark of health
status of the subjects before and after the piano lesson, CES-D scores have been reduced from
10.00±4.24 to 7.00±2.94 (p=0.058), both ’Physical summary’ and ’Mental summary’ of SF-8 showed
a tendency to increase. In terms of HDS-R, there was no change of the average mark.
In conclusion, it is verified that piano learning under professional piano teachers or piano
performance can be efficacious on mental health status of healthy elderly people.