“Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory”, directed by Michael Rossato-Bennett,
presents the opportunity to help people with dementia and memory loss with
recorded music, which they listen to through earphones from iPods.
The film focuses on the organization “Music and Memory” (or “Music
& Memory”,
link as trademarked), founded by Dan Cohen, which works mostly with nursing homes and assisted
living centers to provide the music therapy.
To help a particular patient, one must first find out something about
the person’s past, from family members if possible, and then select music that
the person is likely to respond to. People
often become much more alert and responsive during the music.
The areas of the brain that facilitate music are “deep” and
among the last to be affected specifically by Alzheimer’s.
The film presented several patients (many of them at a
nursing home in Stony Brook, Long Island). Some of them seemed “child like”. I would be hard for an introverted person
like me to want to communicate with them.
One was a WWII veteran (he would have to be about 88), who had been
exposed to radiation during the atomic bomb tests during the Manhattan Project
(one test is shown) and who lost all his hair as a result. Another was a much younger man with multiple
sclerosis (which affects women more frequently than men, generally).
It’s common for assisted living centers to hire musicians
and entertainers to give shows, which provides social activities for
residents. But “Music and Memory”
therapy is personalized and is normally experienced in a private space. But both processes could offer opportunities
for income for musicians.
Some nursing homes may fear legal issues with
copyright. The way the iTunes license
works is that once the 99 cents is paid for a copy of a song, it may be copied
on multiple iPods for all the patients in a particular place.

The film did present the problem of population demographics. As the population ages, more people have
dementia, and probably about 70% will be women, because women live longer than
men. Dementia increases because medicine
can prevent people from dying of other things (cancer and heart disease) for
more years, so a moral test of the value of human life is created. People have fewer children than they used to
have, for a variety of reasons, including the economy and personal individualistic
values. The result is that the practical
burden of caring for people with dementia (including Alzheimer’s) increases
rapidly. This is not a problem that we, as a society,
were particularly aware of until 10-15 years ago. Nursing homes did not exist until after WWII,
and then exploded as an industry. About
half of all patients in them have no visitors.
The music presented in the film was interesting. It included
material from “Jersey Boys” and Frankie Valli (Yesterday’s review), as well as
the Haydn Piano Sonata #53 in E Minor, which a former piano teacher enjoys in
the movie. (She also enjoys the opening of the Rachmaninoff "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini", without the 18th Variation.) I actually sightread this
piece about the time of my junior year in high school.
The official site is
here (Bond-360 as distributor). It would be logical to ask if PBS (POV) or
CNN Films would pick these up for showing on television.
I saw the 75-minute film at Landmark E Street Cinema in
Washington DC. There was an extensive “Q
and A” with both Rossato-Bennett and Cohen.
A few members of the audience became emotional. One question pointed out that this could not
work without tremendous volunteer effort with labor hours from individuals,
probably arranged through faith-based groups.
On the other hand, if the therapy is shown to work “medically”,
there could be justification for hiring people to work in the music therapy
area, and sometimes justification for insurance reimbursement.
The pamphlet requests some rather specific efforts from
potential volunteers, including promoting iPod donation drives, initiating a
school service project, becoming an “ambassador”, or managing an online
fundraiser. (I didn’t see any mention of
Kickstarter in the credits for the film.)
I don’t like to be “recruited” or to gather people for specific causes
(least of all, for politicians), but there are circumstances where a project like
this can create synergy with other things that I do.
I do have a large vinyl classical record collection and CD
collection. It would be possible to
search for specific items to put on the iPod, when provided a list. A late friend had an even bigger collection,
under the control of an estate trustee, and I think that the recordings are in
the Fall Church and Fairfax County (VA) public
school systems somewhere. Again, his library was so complete that it
would be possible to find almost anything.
My own mother died at age 97 in Capital Hospice in Arlington
VA in December 2010. The last music that
she heard was the Schumann Symphony #2 through the intercom.
A correlated project would be Maria Shriver's "The Alzheimer's Project", on the TV Blog May 10, 2009. On this blog, particularly relevant are "Nebraska" (Nov. 23, 2013) and "Gen Silent" (Aug. 26, 2013), about LGBT eldercare. Sept. 24, 2012.
Update: July 28
An obvious question is whether musicians would be less likely to develop dementia or Alzheimer's. Hopefully that's true, but composer Aaron Copland had some dementia symptoms in his 70s, even though he could conduct "Appalachian Spring' his whole lofe. PBS covered this in it's American Experience film "
The Forgetting",
link. I'll have to check whether I've actually seen this program -- it rings a bell.
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