Dementia: Can Music Therapy Make a Difference?

 

Columnist Melinda Beck wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal (November 17, 2009) about music therapy and how it is helpful for unlocking memories in people with dementia.

 

This sounds reasonable to me.  I have noticed myself how residents in care facilities open up and respond to group sing-a-longs, and can still play musical instruments long after the brain ceases to remember everyday things.  It never ceases to amaze me that someone who doesn’t even remember her/his own name can still make beautiful music playing an instrument.  It is as if the fingers or indeed the soul remembers.

 

It isn’t a stretch to think that listening to music might help older people recall memories.  The pioneers of music therapy suggest that people with dementia should listen to music for an hour at a time.  Maybe our kids and grandkids shouldn’t be the only ones tapping their toes with iPod ear buds in their ears.  If dementia is such that your loved one can’t operate an iPod you can play music over speakers for the whole family to enjoy.

 

Scientists are still exploring the ways that music affects the brain.  It seems that listening to music while doing other things provides a cognitive challenge.  Perhaps our young people have the right idea after all.

 

People of all ages relate to and enjoy music.  Therapists use music to promote memory in older adults as it seems to help them emerge from the sense of isolation associated with dementia. Music therapists feel that music can be used not only to treat dementia but to prevent it. Listening to music affects people’s moods and thinking while triggering past memories.

 

An article by Henrietta Bredin (The Spectator, December 12, 2009) centers on music as a form of therapy.  She writes about Music for Life, a project that uses music to reach out to people with dementia.  It is about reaching out to people in an intimate and gentle fashion.  The work is not about entertainment (although music can be enjoyed on that level too); it is about reaching out to people through music.

 

 

Comments

[Daniel Jan Walikis]

For the record(pardon the pun)...
On the air since 1988, in 2004, after conducting many years of extensive independent research on the unlimited parameters of music therapy, I created the very first, pioneer, original proto-type, eclectic, dynamic life-force, Euro-American multi-ethnic folk, world, nationality, and polka music show and combined it with the elements of music therapy and wealth-of-health and wellness in order to create the first pioneer, original proto-type program in the nation which is designed to SLOW DOWN the aging process of our aging nation and society. I weekly address the cognitive illnesses ranging from diminished capacity and dementia to Alzheimer's disease as well as day-t0-day ailments and music for surgery as I carefully select and identify ALL the timeless Euro-American treasures of more than a century of recorded music for my audience, in ALL the European languages and then translated into English as I help them to rebuild new neural pathways through intellectual, mnemonic, and melodic stimulation of both hemispheres(sides)of the brain. Is my show a "multi-ethnic musical fountain of youth?" I connect my audience WITH and TO the music via music, religion, history, culture, and traditions as NO other program is able to do.
Identified as the MOST innovative and creative music and positive aging show in the nation,it's a whole new dimension and new world of multiple amd happy ways and means to SLOW DOWN the aging process. Please visit my web site at www.Danieljan.com
if you need further proof or just listen to my show online every Tuesday evening at 7 PM from Binghamton University at www.whwrfm.org. "Little did you ever think that ALL the music you first learned at your babcia's(grandmother's)knee so many years ago, would be SO important to you in your later years."
Sincerely,

Daniel Jan Walikis
European Ethnic Melodies Show

"It's just multi-ethnic, folk, and polka music 101 and 501 combined with holistic music therapy and wealth of health and wellness 101 and 501." And, it is ALL copyrighted!

[Daniel Jan Walikis]

Thank you for letting me post my comments about my using the music of my European heritage along with many other European heritages
to actually help my audience live longer and live better as I improve the quality of their lives...one song selection at a time. Remember, it's the European Ethnic Melodies Show for "all your health, heritage, music, and memories matter."

By the way, as of today Thursday, June 24, 2010, NO college or university across the USA with degree programs in Music Therapy and having an on-campus radio station... NEVER SAW THE IMPORTANT CONNECTION between using the happy and timeless multi-ethnic music and music therapy as a means of helping the countless hundreds of thousands of people with a European heritage
living in close proximity to the colleges and universities in some of the major cities across the nation. Their loss...