Choir links music and the mind for those with early-stage dementia
Music and the mind. Neuroscientists have linked music, emotion, and memory to one part of the brain. A one-of-a-kind choir in Illinois is using that research to stimulate memories in people with early-to-mid stage dementia.
The Good Memories choir is for people with early-stage dementia.
Wearing their scarves around their necks, and their hearts on their sleeves and under the direction of co-founder Jonathan Miller, the group sings at the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago and travels from the distance of dementia to the presence of the moment.
Bob Horner is a choir board member and the board president.
“Music memory is the last thing that goes,” he said.
Good Memories is the only choir in Illinois for people experiencing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
“There’s been lots of research about how singing in a choir is good for your cognitive health,” Horner said. “It’s good for your socialization.”
Accompanied by a professional pianist, the choir sings six to eight songs that are familiar, deeply ingrained in the American memory. Songs like “God Bless America” and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”
The 40 singers are assisted by caregivers and volunteers who help them turn the page and arrive not only at the words of the tune, but also at a place of genuine happiness.
“They get to have that glorious moment of witnessing how music impacts people,” Miller said. “Let’s stop talking about what older adults cannot do, I want to find out about what they can do.”
Miller and his wife Sandy Seigel Miller co-founded the choir in 2018.
“It is amazing what happens when people with dementia start to sing,” Seigel said. “Singing music is stored in so many parts of the brain that when we sing, it activates parts of the brain that have not yet been affected by dementia. So people act and look and feel like people who are cognitively healthy at least for a time.”
One of the cruelest aspects of dementia is that in losing cognitive functions, those suffering also lose social connections. But in a choir, the singers are dependent on one another. There is no choir without a group.
“It’s really about the joy and the joy of singing together which, of course, is what a choir lets you do,” Miller said.
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