Music, Wellbeing & Learning

The Music Mind Spirit Trust’s cutting-edge research into the significant role music plays in learning and education for Wellbeing was kick-started with its ‘SongTrees 3G Project’ and ‘Swansongs’ as early as 2004 (see below).

MMST continues work in this important area through its SongTrees Young Artist Musical Ambassadors (YAMA) Programme, which trains the next generation of musicians how to facilitate and reawaken latent musicianship within families, care homes and communities. The YAMA Programme has worked in partnership with Yehudi Menuhin’s flagship organisation, Live Music Now and the Royal Academy of Music.

MMST Trustee Prof Nigel Osborne and Dr Chika Robertson have developed an innovative and successful programme of bespoke live music and X-System’s personalised recorded music that benefits care homes and those living with dementia.

Learning about the impact Music can have in Alzheimer’s care and Wellbeing

The problem

Over 5 million people in North America currently live with Alzheimer’s disease. Their families, friends, and colleagues represent at least another 30 million people. The figures in the UK are 750,000 with the disease and 4 1.2 million directly affected. The figures in Europe, the Far East, South America, Australia, Africa, and other areas of the world are equally staggering. A study in the U.S. found that between the ages of 65-75, just over 4% have the disease, between 75-85 this figure jumps to almost 20%, and over 85 years old the number jumps to over 45%. The costs are equally astronomic—estimated in the U.S. alone at $100 billion annually.

Care partners of people living with Alzheimer’s are under continual and extreme stress. They get seriously ill more often than do others their age. If they do not take care of themselves with knowledge, respite, and stress-reducing activities, they cannot take care of the people they love.

Alzheimer’s disease and dementia

Dementia represents a condition in which damage to a person’s brain results in his/her losing certain capacities. Alzheimer’s disease is one cause of dementia—albeit 70% to 80% of dementias. Damage in Alzheimer’s disease is evident in plaques and tangles in the brain that result in specific symptoms. These include loss of the ability to carry out complex sequences of tasks—“executive function,” loss of impulse-control, difficulty retrieving memories and laying down new ones, and eventually diminished control over physical functions. One part of the brain—the emotional center that rests in the amygdala—remains less damaged until late in the disease and thus provides a key to successful nonpharmacological treatment. Symptoms are far more complex and intriguing than the simple distinction between short-term and long-term memory.

Treatment Tips

• Don’t say “No.” “No” is a powerful emotive word that easily negates a person’s sense of self. Subtly agreeing with the person leads to a three-fold process: agree, divert, and redirect.

• Accept the person’s reality about events and time. Just like you don’t want someone to negate your feelings when you are really upset, relate to how they see the world rather than asking them to see it your way.

• Make sense of everything. If a person says something that doesn’t make sense to you, figure out what the intent of the sentence is—it’s underlying meaning—and rephrase it or respond to that rather than the precise words.

• Introduce yourself—even to your mother. She knows who you are. Reminding her of your name and your relationship to her helps her place you in her life story.

• Don’t “test.” Never point to someone and ask: “Do you remember who this is?” or ask if they remember a person in a photo. Tell them the answer so they remember more easily.

• Look to yourself or another cause for aggression and agitation. There is usually something that triggers such behaviors. Don’t assume it is a “symptom” of the disease.

• Control yourself—respond gently to the lack of impulse control.

• Live in the moment—stay connected to the person when you are with them. The person will be sensitive to your lagging attention and may get upset or angry.

• With your help they can feel successful. If a person can’t do every part of a task, if you do some parts, he probably can do the rest and feel competent.

• Remember people living with Alzheimer’s have all their memories. It’s just a matter of helping them get access to them.

• Use music to evoke deep memories. Singing songs that were part of important moments in a person’s life and playing familiar recordings evoke deep remembered feelings and contribute to a sense of self.

• Have faith that the person you love and care for is there—and act on it.

-Prof John Zeisel, extracted from the ‘Swansongs’ Project.

As a member of MMST’s Scientific Advisory Board, Dr Zeisel makes careful distinction between treatment research, aimed at the millions of people who have and will develop Alzheimer’s symptoms now and in the future, and cure research aimed at reducing the occurrence of the disease—stressing the need for knowledge and research in both areas.

One of the prime aims of SongTrees’ ‘YAMA’ Programme is to facilitate such knowledge and research through its innovative and successfully tried-and-tested musical training and delivery model.