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hubie writes:

Novel music intervention sparks emotional connection between patients and caregivers:

People with dementia often lose their ability to communicate verbally with loved ones in later stages of the disease. But a Northwestern Medicine study, in collaboration with Institute for Therapy through the Arts (ITA), shows how that gap can be bridged with a new music intervention.

In the intervention — developed at ITA and called "Musical Bridges to Memory" — a live ensemble plays music from a patient's youth such as songs from the musicals "Oklahoma" or "The Sound of Music." This creates an emotional connection between a patient and their caregiver by allowing them to interact with the music together via singing, dancing and playing simple instruments, the study authors said.

The program also enhanced patients' social engagement and reduced neuropsychiatric symptoms such as agitation, anxiety and depression in both patients and caregivers.

[...] Music memories often remain in the brain even as language and other memories disappear in dementia, Bonakdarpour said. This is because regions of the brain that are involved in musical memory and processing (e.g., the cerebellum) are not as affected by Alzheimer's or dementia until much later in the disease course. Thus, patients can retain the ability to dance and sing long after their ability to talk has diminished.

Before the intervention, some individuals would not communicate much with their partners. However, during the intervention, they started to play, sing and dance together, which was a significant change for the family. These changes generalized to their behavior outside the sessions as well.

"As the program progressed, caregivers invited multiple family members," said Jeffrey Wolfe, a neurologic music therapist-fellow at ITA and leader of the Musical Bridges to Memory program. "It became a normalizing experience for the whole family. All could relate to their loved one despite their degree of dementia."

This brings to my mind Lady Gaga's description of Tony Bennett's last concert where he was well into Alzheimer's, but once he was on stage in front of a band and people, he recognized her, sang his songs, and was his old self. The human brain is a strange and interesting piece of hardware.

Journal Reference:
Rhiana Schafer, Aimee Karstens, Emma Hospelhorn, et al. Musical Bridges to Memory A Pilot Dyadic Music Intervention to Improve Social Engagement in Dementia, Alz Dis Assoc Dis, 2022. DOI: 10.1097/WAD.0000000000000525

Original Submission