Music & Memory

… musical perception, musical sensibility, musical emotion, and musical memory can survive long after other forms of memory have disappeared. Music of the right kind can serve to orient and anchor a patient when almost nothing else can.

Torpid patients become alert and aware; agitated ones grow calmer. Familiar music acts as sort of Proustian mnemonic, eliciting emotions and associations that had been long forgotten, giving the patient access once again to moods and memories, thoughts and worlds that had seemingly been completely lost.

There can be longer-term effects of music for people with dementia – improvements of mood, behavior, even cognitive function – which can persist for hours or days after they have been set off by music.

Music is no luxury to them, but a necessity, and can have a power beyond anything else to restore them to themselves, and to others, at least for a while.