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Music and the Mind: A Different Kind of Dementia Therapy

The man had not spoken in three or four years. An older man in the late stages of Alzheimer’s, he could no longer care for himself and required a high level of assistance in his daily activities of living.

But on one particular day, Concetta Tomaino, DA, a certified music therapist, offered a different kind of dementia therapy—she sang an old Yiddish song to him and some of her other patients. “You could tell by his face that he was watching,” recalls Tomaino. From a man in his condition, attention was a lot to ask for. “Whenever I got a chance I played this song to him and sang to him. Within a month of doing this, he was making an attempt to speak, and he eventually started singing the song himself. He also started talking again. He continued talking and lived for many years after that.”

This article continues at Dementia Therapy and Music.

 Thank you for sharing this informative article. Music soothes the soul and comforts the mind and that's what I am learning with my own experiences with my mother. She enjoys music and I see how it does calm her 'ticks' of nervousness or agitations of going to the doctor's appointments and she's even starting to carry a beat of tapping her hands on her knee as we drive to town with the radio on for a more relaxing trip. 

Thanks for sharing this.  I can remember my Great Great Grandmother.  I was very young, didn't know that she had memory issues (I do not belive that they diagnosed it as Alzheimer's in the early 80's). I can remember visiting with my Great-Great Grandmother, at the time she lived with her daughter, and her family.  My Great-Grandmother and Great-Aunt had taught me how to play this game in Italian that had a chant.  When we would do this in my Great-Great Grandmother presence...oh, how her face would light up and she would join us in song.  Just remembering her and how she would come to life is amazing to me as I look back.

Great  article. Thank you for posting. I would be very interested in hearing more about methods used to get a patient actively engaged in making music themselves.