Music Monday - aus Deutschland!
/At the recent World Alliance for Arts Education conference in Frankfurt I was chatting over dinner with a friend from Helsinki. Tinti works in music with dementia patients in a care facility.
Tinti was telling me that many of her clients can no longer use spoken language but when she plays the songs from their youth on her piano accordion, they all respond in some way -and many of them sing the words – words which they can no longer use in speech.
Why is this so?
A quick google search suggests that the key brain areas linked to musical and emotional memory are relatively undamaged by the disease.
A Stanford University study on the effect of music therapy on older adults found that rhythmic music stimulates certain areas of the brain to increase blood flow. Seniors could improve their scores on cognitive tests by taking part in music activities.
This had me musing:
For dementia patients to be stimulated by musical memory they must have had songs in their past with which to identify. It is important to sing!
With all of the research on the importance of beat and rhythm in early music education – wouldn’t it be interesting to set up a lifetime research project where children were tracked musically and cognitively throughout life?
All arts education is vitally important to maintaining healthy societies; but when it comes to brain health it would appear that music is the most important!
