New research from a four month study has found that regular singing sessions can help boost the brain power of patients with Alzheimer's disease, the Guardian reports.
"Even when people are in the fairly advanced stages of dementia, when it is so advanced they are in a secure ward, singing sessions were still helpful. The message is: don't give up on these people. You need to be doing things that engage them, and singing is cheap, easy and engaging," Jane Flinn, a neuroscientist at George Mason University in Virginia, told the Guardian.
Over the course of the study, which was described at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego, elderly patients at a U.S. nursing home joined in singing familiar songs from The Sound of Music, Oklahoma, The Wizard of Oz and Pinocchio. For those with moderate to severe dementia, singing along seemed to have the biggest impact not only on their satisfaction-with-life questionnaires on the end of the study, but on their scores on cognitive and drawing tests given four months before and after singing classes as well.
Finn's colleague, Linda Maguire, led the study in which residents from two groups, one in which patients have moderate dementia and one in which their dementia is severe, joined three 50-minute group sessions a week for four months. Half of the people from each group sang along while the other half just listened. Songs included familiar classics such as "The Sound of Music", "When You Wish Upon a Star" and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."
According to Finn, while listening impacted temporal lobe activity on the right side of the brain and watching a class activated visual areas, singing and speaking activated more regions on the left side of the brain.
"A lot of people have grown up singing songs and for a long time the memories are still there," said Flinn. "When they start singing it can revive those memories."
"There is much anecdotal evidence that the groups have real benefits for people with dementia," UK Alzheimer's Society spokesperson told the Guardian. "Even when many memories are hard to retrieve, music can sometimes still be recalled, if only for a short while. The sessions help people with dementia communicate, improving their mood and leaving them feeling good about themselves."
