Music Therapy is one of the oldest treatment methods in the world to treat diseases holistically, and the benefits are backed by science. 

Most recently, it has been shown that both listening and playing music are extremely effective in preventing dementia.

When music enters the scene, the mood often changes stress, pain, and anxiety become less and less important. 

The three key ingredients to this cure are rhythm, melody, and harmony. 

Studies show that playing an instrument has a positive impact on inhibition, planning, and verbal intelligence. Furthermore, children who undergo musical training have better verbal memory, second language pronunciation accuracy, reading ability, and executive functions. 

Brain studies show that musicians' motor and multi-sensory networks are often better trained to work together. 

The process of actually playing involves:

1. Reading a complex symbolic system and translating it into sequential, bimanual motor activity dependent on multi-sensory feedback.
2. Developing fine motor skills coupled with metric precision
3. Memorizing long musical passages
4. Improvising within given musical parameters. 

Listening to music requires certain perceptual abilities, including pitch discrimination, auditory memory, and selective attention in order to perceive the temporal and harmonic structure of the music as well as its affective components. 

When listening, a network of brain structures becomes engaged. 

Essentially, the auditory cognitive system is fully engaged and dependent on working memory mechanisms in order to relate one element in a sequence to another that occurs later.