Music to your ears – and mind
Research shows that listening to, and playing, your favourite songs can help delay dementia.
How music might help
Researchers believe music’s benefits include:
Brain activation. Music can stimulate several brain regions involved in memory, emotion, and attention, which may help build cognitive reserve.
Cognitive benefits. Consistently listening to music is linked to better memory and global cognition scores over time.
Preserving identity. Even in the later stages of dementia, familiar music can help people reconnect with their sense of self and the memories associated with those songs.
What you can do:
Listen regularly. Make listening to your favourite music a daily habit.
Play an instrument.
Sing. Karaoke or singing in a choir or social setting has been associated with reduced dementia risk.
Music can be a strange elixir. Shakespeare got it right when he wrote, in separate works, that it’s the “food of love”, that it can “kill care and grief of heart”, and “make bad good, and good provoke to harm”.
Medically, it’s known that music can help revive good memories for people with severe dementia. Now, research points to its benefits in staving off the disease in some people.
Listening to music when you are over 70 has been linked to a 39% reduction in the risk of dementia, according to a Monash University-led study of more than 10,800 older people.
Playing an instrument was associated with a 35% reduction in dementia risk.
The study also tested the amount of music one listens to. For example, always listening to music had the greatest reduction in dementia risk (39%) and 17% lower incidence of cognitive impairment, as well as higher scores in overall cognition and episodic memory (used when recalling everyday events).
Regularly engaging in both music listening and playing was associated with a 33% decreased risk of dementia and 22% decreased risk of cognitive impairment.
The researchers are not sure how engaging with music wards off the disease, but they are now looking into developing strategies around music activities for maintaining cognitive health in older adults.
American researchers may have the answer to “why”. They found listening to music that has personal significance or meaning, such as the song played at the first dance at your wedding, deeply activates and strengthens the area of the brain that degenerates with Alzheimer’s disease.
“Music and the arts have a very protective effect when it comes to brain health overall,” geriatrician, Scott Kaiser, said.
“A lot of that practice and patterns are deeply engrained, so people can continue to do the things that they’ve done for a long time.”
Strategies are now being developed that integrate meaningful music into an exercise routine for patients with dementia and mild cognitive impairment.
It’s known that exercise improves blood flow and growth factor release in the brain, but there is little research on the cognitive effects of combining meaningful music with an exercise routine.
“It will be interesting to see what future studies can be done combining personalised familiar music with activities like exercise, dance, or even singinsg. We may see that the best effects come with doing it all,” Dr Kaiser said.
Population ageing has become a global public health concern due to advances in medicine and technology extending human lifespans. Longer life expectancy has also meant more age‐related diseases, including cognitive decline and dementia.
Evidence suggests brain ageing is not just based on age and genetics but can be influenced by your personal environmental and lifestyle choices.
Related reading: Pacific Neuroscience Institute, Monash
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