Brain functioning of those suffering from dementia can be improved if they belt out their favorite show tunes, according to a recent 4-month long study by U.S. scientists.
Interestingly, listening to old favorites from the heyday of their youths — songs like “Oklahoma” ”Wizard of Oz” and ”Sound of Music” — has yielded favorable results on the moods and memories of seniors with dementia. And when they actually sang along, they had more favorable results than when they just listened. Even when our loved ones are in advanced stages of dementia, singing show tunes was found to be helpful. “The message is: don’t give up on these people. You need to be doing things that engage them, and singing is cheap, easy and engaging.” And it’s fun!!!
As we at www.ParentingOurParents (POP) keep saying, once families work together to create a POPlan and folks are on board to participate in the POPcycle, it’s time for families to engage in fun.
In my family, where my Dad wrote with Frank Sinatra, Burt Bachrach and so many others, listening and singing music together not only kept his and Mom’s latter years more coherent, but doing so brought smiles to us all. Whether or not you can carry a tune, and even if you don’t have dementia, listening to and, better yet, belting out your old favorite songs has got to be good for us!
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