More on Music and Dementia

In the past, we wrote about research regarding the role that music can play in improving the lives of people with dementia.  We particularly highlighted the documentary, Alive Inside, which illustrated the power of music to call those with severe dementia back to our world.  Research in this area continues.

In fact, Dr. Vaishali Phatak, contributor to Beating the Dementia Monster, has been involved in research at the University of Nebraska to study music and dementia.  Her research is through an initiative called "Nebraska Heartbeats."  It's a multidisciplinary collaboration of experts from the fields of music, neuroscience, geriatric psychiatry, dementia care, and music therapy.  

The concept is that the music we knew in our 20s and 30s lives deeply within us, and these memories are less vulnerable to the ravages of neurodegenerative disease.  Memories of music can be used to bring us back to a familiar place, eliciting happy and comforting thoughts.  So the researchers expose persons with dementia to music corresponding to their ages to get a beneficial result.

The researchers tried to launch an in-person pilot in the fall of 2020, but covid restrictions required postponing the effort.  During that time, they noted something we wrote about here -- that the increased isolation of the covid restrictions themselves caused what appear to be premature deaths of some with dementia.  (We wrote about a particular premature covid death of our own here.)  But during that period, the Nebraska Heartbeats team looked for ways to apply music and other therapies to dementia patients living in isolation.  

They published a peer-reviewed  article, "Leveraging Cross-Campus Expertise to Contribute to Dementia Care Through Music," in the journal AMA Journal of Ethics in July of this year.  At this point in time, they're seeking a grant to continue this promising research.  They hope to focus research on the efficacy of music interventions to retrieve memories and benefits to general well being.