Alzheimer: Music Helps to Remember
May 31st 2010 -
Alzheimer’s patients remember more easily from texts if they are presented together with this music. In healthy elderly people the music had no effect on the other hand, memory, U.S. researchers write in the journal “Neuropsychologia”.
Alzheimer’s is the most common type of dementia in Germany, about one million people are affected. The first sign is usually forgetfulness, with progressive disease, the mental efficiency continuously declines.
Brandon Ally’s team from the University of Boston has now examined the extent to which music inspires the memory of dementia patients. Therefore, the researchers asked 13 senior citizens with Alzheimer’s disease and 14 healthy older gentlemen unknown children’s learning. During the experiment participants were reading the printed text 40, 20 of the songs were sung accompanied by a recording, 20 song lyrics were read to them without music. It was shown that Alzheimer’s patients, the lyrics were sung afterwards in more detail in the text as spoken memory. In non demented controls the type of performance was however no difference. They saw themselves auditioned and auditioned texts equally well.
The researchers have two possible explanations: First, could be those areas of the brain responsible for perception and processing of music, not from Alzheimer’s disease affected. The second is for the music to increase the general attention of dementia patients and improve their learning performance in this way.
Tags: Alzheimer, Alzheimer's disease, journal neuropsychologia, memory of dementia patients, music helps to remember, type of dementia
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