Music and Madness

One of the most effective tools in helping calm the mad behavior that often results from an Alzheimer patient's inability to cope with his or her pain, confusion, or environment is music. When a person suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's explodes in raging anger, combative behavior, verbal abuse and nastiness, music is often the key to unlocking the calmer, more rational, compassionate part of the brain that has been either sleeping or wounded by the disease. When short term memory dies, music can bring to the surface a long term memory, feeling, or emotion still living.

The Alzheimer’s Foundation of America says: “When used appropriately, music can shift mood, manage stress-induced agitation, stimulate positive interactions, facilitate cognitive function, and coordinate motor movements.” I can attest to this first hand. For example, when my mother was exceptionally agitated and combative, my sister and I would sing, “You are my Sunshine” to calm her so the aids could shower her without getting struck or bitten. Playing music on a portable bluetooth speaker, singing, or listening to live music made her more social, communicative, and lifted her out of bouts of depression.

There are a myriad of articles online that explain why music is beneficial to people with Alzheimer’s so I won’t try to play scientist here but I’ve seen much evidence that music helps the person living with the disease by evoking memories and emotions attached to familiar music. It also provides a mechanism for expression the Alzheimer’s patient is losing verbally. Music speaks when words fail even for those of us who are not suffering from dementia.

HBO did a series called the “Alzheimer’s Project: The Memory Loss Tapes” where they profiled seven people in differing stages of Alzheimer’s. One very profound tape showed a man named Woody Geist who had sung many years of his life with a group called The Grunyons. He was an absent-minded whistler, always making some kind of music go from his head to his mouth. While Woody couldn’t recall his own wife and daughter, was limited in his communication skills and repeated the same question every few minutes, when they put him on stage with his former singing group, he was able to jump into song without missing a note or lyric even though he couldn’t remember the names or faces of anyone in the group.

Somewhere, there is a US study that shows singing in an organized group on a regular and long-term basis significantly improves the cognitive abilities of people with dementia. Well, my mother has Alzheimer’s and her mother had Alzheimer’s and they both got in in their late 60’s. I’ve been singing in multiple groups since 1992 and I’m praying that something about my ability to memorize complex arrangements for the past 25 years will help ward off the nasty disease. If not, at least I may be like Wood Geist and find immense familiarity and comfort singing.