SINGING to elderly people with dementia helps them form new memories, one of the first skills they tend to lose.
Music is known to aid memory, especially recalling autobiographical information. For example, people with Alzheimer's disease are better at remembering events from their own past when music is playing in the background. It was less clear whether tunes could also help them learn.
Brandon Ally at Boston University and his team were inspired by the report of a man with Alzheimer's who could recall current events if his daughter sang the news to him to the tune of familiar pop songs. They decided to try it out for themselves.
They gave 13 people with Alzheimer's and 14 healthy seniors the lyrics from 40 unfamiliar children's songs to read, half accompanied by the actual song and half by the spoken words. All the participants saw the lyrics again without audio and mixed in with lyrics from a further 40 unknown songs. Those with Alzheimer's were able to recognise 40 per cent of the original lyrics that had been accompanied by song but only 28 per cent of those read to them. The healthy seniors recognised 80 per cent of lyrics, regardless of whether they had been sung or spoken (Neuropsychologia, DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.04.033).
Very few things enhance new learning in people with dementia, says Ally. "It's really cool that hearing the lyrics sung did." He suggests that teaching patients new medication regimes via a song in the early stages of dementia might enable them to live independently for a bit longer.
We don't yet know why singing should help, but Ally says that music engages areas of the brain, including subcortical regions, that are typically spared until later on in dementia. Music may also improve attention, he adds.
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Art & Science Combine To Help
Tue May 25 12:14:02 BST 2010 by Adam
http://mememoryman.wordpress.com/I particularly like the idea of the musical world having a beneificial impact that's measurarable in the scientific world.
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Tuesday 25 May 2010
Dementia: Sing me the news, and I'll remember it
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