Reflecting on Music and Dementia

When I sat down for an interview with Kelly Chiat, the events coordinator at Jefferson House Memory Care in Kirkland, she told me that “music brings excitement, comfort, and connection into the community in a way that very few other activities can.” It is no mystery that music has a profound impact on mental health, and especially in terms of helping patients with illnesses like dementia or Alzheimer’s, it can have unprecedented positive effects.

Dementia tends to cause agitation and anxiety as patients lose understanding about their lives and their surroundings. Music therapy has been proven to mitigate these effects. Not only does it lessen negative emotions, it also allows for greater communication between patients and their caregivers, bringing about a higher quality of care overall. 

Since musical memories are stored in a different part of the brain than other memory systems, recollections of familiar songs have been found to remain even in late stages of a memory-affecting disease, helping seniors regain a sense of belonging and identity when all else seems to be lost. In the case of the musician Clive Wearing, who had a memory span of less than 15 seconds and no memory of his past, he was still able to perfectly play Bach when presented with sheet music and hold conversations while doing so. This remarkable example shows how music persists long after other memories have fallen apart and can still be used to find a connection to someone’s former life. Chiat observed similarly in her own workplace, noting that she had “seen residents sing along to lyrics they seemingly did not remember, smile when hearing music from their younger years, or become calmer and more engaged during performances.”

The last time I performed at Jefferson House, I chose a classic: Ave Maria. Not only had I fallen completely in love with this piece, I hoped that others, too, would recognize it and feel the same way. I remember preparing to go onstage when I saw a woman nudge her mother out of the corner of my eye. “Look, Ave Maria. That was the song you played at your wedding, remember?”

Although they hadn’t meant for me to overhear, it was heartwarming to know that my music could hold a key to one of the residents’ favorite memories. Many ConChord members also perform pieces from the classical repertoire—Chopin, Beethoven, Bach, and more. To me, it’s clear how much of an effect our music has on the residents we perform for. Even though many of them are incapable of expressing themselves with the same ease as in their younger years, their attempts to communicate their gratitude to us shows how much they care, as do the smaller moments: when a woman walking aimlessly around the halls for the past hour pauses to listen. When a couple smiles at each other because of a shared memory that arises from a chord. When a man finds tears in his eyes from the stories we tell through sound. 

One Australian study followed participants for over a decade, measuring their musical intake and overall health. In the end, they found that people who listened to music most days had a 39 percent lower risk of developing dementia than other participants who “never,” “rarely” or only “sometimes” listened to music. Live music had an even stronger boon than listening to recorded music. So not only does music help with the effects of dementia—it can prevent the condition from developing in the first place.

By regularly performing music at nursing homes, we are facilitating connection between the elderly and the young, between patients and caregivers, and between disoriented seniors and their former selves. Even if one concert often does not seem like enough to make a difference, we may not realize how much of an impact our music truly has on another person. As Chiat said: music “reminds [us] how meaningful even small moments can be in memory care.”